WOLVES OF ARCANUS

(Arc Two: New Beginnings)

CHAPTER 10: Megakat City: Chasing a Shadow

Snow was falling outside the darkened office over-looking the city as two tired and dispirited males shared a bottle of whiskey. As they'd done for the past month and a half, the two were going over the dismal reports they'd received on an undercover operation they'd been assigned by the Mayor not too long after the Wotan left their world.

"Despite all our weeks of spying on the criminal factions in the city, all we came up with is the usual squabbles, take overs, incursions, and what not. Some are of minor interest but none give us who or what this shadow agency might be or if one of the main criminal factions here are a part of it or its an outside agency that's done a very good job of keeping their doings under the radar with excellent success," Lt. Commander Wilfred Dormanger sighed, dropping the report then taking a healthy swallow of his drink.

"Hmm...just for my edification, read off what they did find, if you please, Wilf," his Commander requested. The powerful Chief Enforcer of the city, Jason Sharpclaws, was deeply frustrated by their lack of progress.

He refused to believe an operation as large as this one had to be to have the funds and power to run an op of this size for over ten years without being caught at it. However, that was turning out to be the case. They hadn't found a trace of it despite turning the city upside down hunting for it. But he refuse to give up. Someone, somewhere, had to know something about it. It was simply a matter of finding that person.

He eyed his second in command who was searching his report for the pertinent section he'd asked for. He'd been lucky finding this tom when he was visiting the Sandeval Bay Federation Military Command. Dormanger was there on an exchange program set up between his country and Sandeval Bay.

The young tom was tall and lean with cream fur and dark mask, ears and tail that marked him as being from one of the many states that made up the Siamese Confederation, located to the far south of Megakat City and across the ocean from Sandeval Bay. After meeting the young tom, Sharpclaws knew he'd be the perfect replacement for his second in command.

His predecessor, Feral, had not made time to fill the empty second in command spot when he shipped off Lt. Commander Steele off to Sandeval Bay where the tough and hard military leader General Transcar would, hopefully, turn the pipsqueak into a decent officer.

With the arrival of the Arcanians, the position was just left open. So when Sharpclaws took over, he searched hard for someone that could handle the revamping of the sorely out-of-date, ill-armed and trained troops and that they wouldn't be freaked out or prejudiced against working side by side with robots.

He'd found exactly what he needed in the bright and intelligent Dormanger. The tom was the first of many new officers Sharpclaws had hired to replace the huge dearth of recently dead and retired staff officers. The omegas had drained the manpower resources for years and it was only when peace was achieved, was the new Chief Enforcer able to make some progress in signing on new officers with people from outside Megakat. Using outsiders, he hoped, would bring new ideas and methods of fighting the Enforcers sorely needed to switch from the long-term defensive war they'd been forced to wage, to the peace keeping one they'd been originally designed to handle and the new challenges becoming a way station for space faring races.

His ruminating of the past was interrupted by Dormanger beginning his report.

"First of all, there's the drug cartel out of the Siamese Confederation attempting a run at pushing their drugs past Master Kow's Triad, setting up shop in the far fringes of Siamese Town. There's been some rather violent reaction to that by both sides but so far no bystanders have gotten harmed so we keep a close watch and hope the cruds do themselves in." Sharpclaws snorted at that causing his second to give a very fangy smile in reply.

"Meanwhile there's been some jockeying for gambling rights along casino row between the Frostburn and Brinatta mob families and the usual in-fighting among the younger set. There are some disgruntled and bored scions of both families that are itching to prove to their sires they are ready to take over the family business or, at the very least, take up the number two slots. Would be nice if they just got them killed and saved us all the headaches."

"Last week, our special op dealing with weapons trafficking managed to capture the single arms dealer from the Kymur Territories that was left in our city. Bet it will take some time before the mob families are able to find another to help build their stockpile for the war they are trying to gear up for. If we have anything to say about it, no arms dealer will step foot inside our borders. But that's just wishful thinking," Dormanger sighed.

"We also got a lucky break and managed to take down that slaver from the Tymurr Federation, Diasarr...his name was," he continued. "The fool made the mistake of choosing to do a snatch and grab on Tiger Frostburn's stable of females from his prostitution ring. Things must be getting tough for them to be taking used meat instead of fresh, unused runaways." His expression showed his disgust about the sort of people who would traffic in slavery. He had a particular hatred for this type of criminal as a family member had been snatched but was rescued before she could be 'vanished' as so many were and the one who had done it had been dispatched by a furious Dormanger.

"Wished it had gotten us something on our target but I'm not unhappy to have taken one of those slimy devils out. Though, I suspect we only just managed to snag Diasarr just before Frostburn had him drawn and quartered like in the very old, bad days," the Commander said, dryly.

Dormanger grimaced. "Would have made our job easier if we'd been just a little too late arriving. However..." and here a cold light of satisfaction filled his blue eyes for a moment, "...I had him put in general population. You know how they feel about this type of scum..."

"Hmm, yes, he'll be lucky to survive long there," Sharpclaws snorted, dark amusement flickered across his face for a moment. "However, I would have thought he'd been extradited by now. They always have a well paid cadre of lawyers to get their asses out of jail. How come we still have him?"

Dormanger looked a little uncomfortable. "Well...we kind of prevented his signal going out when he used his cell phone so I doubt his lawyers got the message right away. Of course, he text it too but we've not seen a response yet." He shrugged innocently.

Sharpclaws rolled his eyes upward. "I know how you feel about these guys, Wilf. I sympathize. But you tread very close to breaking the laws yourself..."

The Siamese raised a paw. "I know, sir and I'm careful to insure a prisoner is offered all opportunities to contact legal counsel, however, might I add, it seemed this guy wasn't in too great a hurry to report in. In fact, he demanded asylum..."

"Seriously?" Sharpclaws snorted at the audacity of the prisoner. "Won't do him any good as Ms. Briggs won't grant it."

"True, and she's so buried with consolidating her power base and campaigning, she hasn't had time to deal with it yet which is sort of a good thing...if you know what I mean, sir."

Sharpclaws sighed and rolled his eyes again. "I do indeed, however, we can ill afford to have it appear we have deliberately placed a prisoner in danger, so have him moved to a secure cell immediately."

A sour look crossed the second's face briefly but he nodded his head. "Yes, sir, I'll do that first thing in the morning."

Sharpclaws closed his eyes. This was the only negative thing he had some cause for concern about with his second in command. But he learned to live with it as long as it didn't come back and bite him in the tail.

"Anyway, back to my report, sir. There's been a new crime wave gumming up our efforts to clean up the city. Cyber crime had increased more than fifty percent..."

"What?" His Commander interrupted angrily. He knew about the new internet crime but hadn't seen the latest statistics on it to know it had steeply climbed since he'd taken office.

Dormanger's face was grim and concerned. "There's been far more incidents of internet fraud, embezzling, counterfeiting, industrial spying, and outright stealing of information on the web despite our new Cyber squad's efforts."

"This trend is worrisome and is the first real indication we may have found our hidden adversary," Sharpclaws said, a thoughtful look on his face.

"Sir?"

"Don't you see? The new battlefield won't be with weapons, jets, and tanks, but with computers. It may very well have been the way this shadow agency has managed to remain under the radar for so long. We've had computers but our priority was always on keeping the omegas from wiping the city out. No one had time to see if someone might be burrowing into our government files and taking us that way. It's the perfect coup and we didn't even know it."

"Sonofabitch! That's why we can't find them! However, now that we suspect this is what's going on, I'll sic our new Cyber squad on it immediately. Maybe we'll finally get a break and get a line on who these guys are," Dormanger said in rising excitement. Finally something he could sink his fangs in.

"Most likely. But I doubt finding them will be quite that easy. After all, they've had years to perfect their methods of covering their tracks and staying hidden for as long as they have. For all we know, they could have their fingers in all the crime going on in the city through the internet," Sharpclaws observed with rising concern and anger, as certainty grew in him that their enemy had been thumbing their nose at them all along. Well that had to stop...now!

"Oh that's a bad thought," Dormanger growled, more than a little worried his Chief was right. "I'll just have to get with my squad and tell them what we suspect and set them the task to dig them out. We have a lot of bright minds in there. Someone is bound to find something hinky going on."

"Good idea and don't forget the robots are even better at doing that than Kats are. They just might spot what we're looking for far quicker too. I believe Wilf this may be our first break in catching these guys. Put all our resources on it immediately and if you need more help, let me know," Sharpclaws ordered, his despondent mood evaporating with this new direction into the investigation.

"I will, sir. But we won't need more manpower just the right kind and I have that."

They both fell silent as they thought of the implications and what that might mean in finding the hidden agency. Outside the huge bay of windows, night patrols were coming and going, their lights flashing into the room briefly as they dropped to the flight line.

Sharpclaws thought about the innovation former Commander Feral had instituted before he left Aristal. The incorporation of robots into the Enforcer. They and the influx of new blood among the troops had managed to ease the lingering distrust the older Enforcers had with robots.

As the public began to observe how robots were helping to keep the city safe, it paved the way for more robots in the private sector. It was a slow process but gradually, robots would become an accepted part of the defense of the city against crime and the occasional mistake from the scientific community.

Once his Enforcers accepted the pairing of robots and Kats with the ground troops, he planned on adding them to the chopper and jet squadrons. But that was in the distant future, for right now he main focus was on trying to clean out the city's criminal element.

Surprisingly, that would be much more difficult than it had been to eliminate the omegas. It was due to those heavy hitters, that the smaller fry had learned to hide themselves and their doings so very well. Now that the omegas were gone, the criminal element felt it was time to expand. Because they had learned to work far underground, digging them out would take a lot of work both with his foot patrols, special ops, and the cyber squad.

Their first successful strike against this new enemy had been Ms. Briggs' discovery and immediate take-down of the former Mayor and his paid minions. That had to have been a serious blow to this shadow agency as well as the local criminal element. Which was a good thing as it had shaken their confidence that they could finally take over themselves. Which meant he and his Enforcers had to push their advantage before the bad guys could recover.

He was certain, if they could successfully uncover the shadowy power responsible for the attempted take over of their city government, then the rest would think twice about trying to expand their petty empires.

One could hope...but he knew with their world becoming part of a galaxy-wide community, criminals would see this as a golden opportunity for making obscene amounts of money by focusing all their illegal skills to bilking and robbing all the new alien visitors to their world. With such a possible bonanza before them, they would risk almost anything including being captured so his threats of military action would be considered an acceptable risk and that's what worried him most.

But that wasn't his only problem. With the loss of the omegas, the population of Megakat City had begun to feel safer which made them think about having families, opening businesses, and beginning new communities that would expand the city beyond its boundaries rather quickly.

There were signs of that rosy view behavior already making itself felt with the advent of new buildings being built, businesses increasing size or opening new ones, and the influx of immigrants hoping to ride the comet to a new future of prosperity.

Sharpclaws had no problem with prosperity. The city needed it to recover from the decade of war against the omegas. His only objection was the people's mistaken idea that the city was crime-free. That simply wasn't true. It just wasn't that obvious as the omega attacks had been.

However, in deference to Ms. Briggs' efforts to be elected, he allowed the press to print stories of only positive aspects of the city's so called rebirth while continuing to work behind the scenes to keep a leash on the criminal element as best he could.

With the roadblock to trade swept away by the destruction of the omegas, other countries now felt emboldened to once more increase their shipping of products, setting up factories, and sending their people to work and live in Megakat City. It didn't hurt that the newcomers were also hoping to trade with the members of the galactic community when Aristal's space station was completed two years hence.

It was a given, that Megakat City would become the hub of the galaxy and this was the place to be in the future. Though it was only a couple of months since they'd joined the Alliance, the city was already growing by leaps and bounds. The sagging economy was showing slow but steady growth allowing the badly deteriorating infrastructure to receive much needed funds for repair which, in turn, increased hiring of workers, easing the unemployment problems they'd been experiencing.

By the time the space port was built and manned, all expected to be doing business on a much bigger scale with the Alliance. But that was the future. What needed to happen now was electing a new mayor, finding and crushing a shadow power trying to take over their government, and dealing with the Pastmaster before they even begin thinking about all the benefits they'd gain from out there in space.

It was this future with the Alliance that was in jeopardy if they didn't find their hidden enemy soon, because he sincerely doubted they'd give up trying to claim the city despite the blow they'd been dealt. He sighed and rubbed his face. They would just have to be smarter and more devious than their enemy has been.

Speaking into the silence, Sharpclaws observed, "I have no doubt since the departure of the omegas and the unseating of their puppet, our enemy hasn't given up their desire to own our city and this increase in cyber crime could, indeed, be a sign of that influence. And with the signing of the agreement with the Alliance, their desire to control Megakat City would be even more determined. I'm sure you can imagine how fortuitous this might be for them, eh?" He finished his whiskey and studied the empty glass.

"Oh definitely. Nothing but profit to be made from all those passing star ships from dozens of worlds. They can ply their illegal traffic in all its forms, run extortion rackets, and any other type of criminal activity that will gain them money, power, and prestige. They must be positively salivating at all the opportunities space visitors could gain them especially if they can dictate the prices and product by being in charge of the largest city these travelers must pass through," his second snorted in disgust at the greed of such creatures. He knocked back the rest of the contents of his tumbler and prepared to leave.

"Exactly. So right now while we are turning over every rock and searching every crannie for them, our quarry is laying low and making plans. As soon as they think it's the right time, more likely just before the election, they'll enter a dark horse against Ms. Briggs and begin a very intense campaign to convince the people a new candidate from outside the city would be best for Megakat's recovery and push them further away from their tainted past.

"Out with the old and in with the new... yeah, I can just hear their banner cry now," Dormanger said sourly, shaking his head. "So what's your strategy boss, besides trying to dig our enemy out of our computers?"

"Keep up the physical search. We can't let them think we've given up and are doing something else. Insure our Cyber Squad hides their hunt from our enemy as long as they can while they get the goods on them. You'll have to explain that to the robots who are more literal and won't understand subterfuge. I've a strong hunch we're on the right track here and that we'll find this is where our enemy has been hiding all along. Now all we have to do is track them back to their nest and take them out."

Dormanger nodded, set his glass down and stood up to stretch. "I'm with you on that. Well, I've got my plan. Hopefully, we'll have something very soon. Normally, it would have taken days maybe weeks of searching to find a crumb of their trail, because like you said, they've had a very long time to put up firewalls strong enough to resist most hackers. However, I have a couple on my crew that are very young but extremely good at hacking. I'll turn them loose on this. They'll think it's the best hunt they've had in a long time," He grinned, humorlessly. "Our one advantage, sir, is no one is really privy to just how many robots are actually in our main headquarters. We've only let the public know about the paired ground forces."

"So true, Wilf. Use that advantage and get hunting."

"Right away sir. Oh, I feel I better mention that this kind of Cyber work is going to use a lot of power and that costs money. Even with our increased budget that might be difficult for the council to swallow."

"Guess it's lucky we have the temporary mayor on our side, eh? She'll find the money and fund us without a quibble. Just send me what you need and I'll get with her about it." A satisfied smile crossed his normally stern face.

Dormanger smiled broadly back. "True. They'll do anything she says since she was the one that ousted all the old members." Then his expression fell into more grim lines as something occurred to him, "... and that could backfire on her, sir, allowing that dark horse a better chance at winning."

Sharpclaws sighed and stared up at the dark ceiling over his head. "Exactly what she fears as well, Wilf. And the same may be true when she is forced to use those new abilities of hers to rid us of the Pastmaster. Which is why it's important to find this hidden power before that dark horse even makes an appearance."

Dormanger rubbed his face and sighed as he set his glass down and got to his feet. "Yes sir. I just wish we could catch a break here. Whoever they are, they've covered their tracks well."

"I'll let you in on a secret, Wilf..." Sharpclaws said, dropping his voice to a more confidential level.

Dormanger had to lean close to hear what his boss had to say.

"All we need is one tiny clue, a location, a name, anything...and Ms. Briggs will attempt a spell to track it back to our quarry."

His second's eyebrows rose in surprise. "Really? She can do that?"

His boss shrugged. "She was told it was possible but being new at this business of magic, she won't know until she tries it."

"If it works...I'll do what I can, sir, to find that tiny clue. Good night, sir," Dormanger said, a determined spring to his step as he left the Chief Enforcer's office.

"Good luck to you, Wilf," Sharpclaws said softly to himself. "Our future depends on what you can find."