Chapter 8

For the first time in 3 weeks, the Freelance Police office no longer held the overpowering aroma of cigarettes, cheap takeout food and one Lagomorph who had let personal hygiene drop from his list of priorities. That night after coming home from the warehouse, said Lagomorph came in late and suddenly, as if just noticing how bad the office had become, felt the overpowering urge to tidy. He removed the trash littered on the floor, opened windows to let out the stale air, and dusted.

Finally feeling he could let someone enter the office and not be embarrassed, he then took a shower. Three weeks of personal neglect and a few hours stepping through a sewer had felt his fur in desperate need of a little care and attention… and bleach.

Finally Max emerged and, despite the annoying taste of hydrogen peroxide in his mouth, felt… well, good. He was proud the office no longer looked like a tip, he was proud he no longer smelt and looked like a tramp and he was proud of what he accomplished today.

"Ok… been in the dumps long enough. Time to turn things around. No more late nights, no more letting things go to hell, no more acting an ass in front of clients…" Max said, listing off all the ways he would transform himself from the lazy bum he had been that very morning into something better.

(Five hours later)

Ring Ring

(Pause)

Ring Ring

(Pause)

Ring Ri-

Max picked up the phone and said tonelessly "Go away" before dropping it carelessly onto its cradle and stumbling back to bed. Shortest resolution, ever, Max thought groggily as he felt sweet unconsciousness try to take him into its warm embrace…

Ring Ring

"Nooo…" Came the quiet and groggy voice of Max from under the sheets

Ring Ring

"Bugger off!" Max yelled as he got out of bed for the second time. He wiped his crusted eyes, looked at the clock and read 9:12 on its display. Is the hour of the day still only in single digits? Who the hell calls someone in the middle of the night?

Ring Ring

"Urghh" Max groaned as he stumbled out of bed and instead of walking, fell in the general direction of the phone. As soon as he collided into the table and grabbed the phone again, he asked "…What is it?" In a voice that didn't bother to hide his irritation.

There was a noticeable pause before finally a deep voice asked "Have I called at a bad time, Sir?"

I hung up on you, what do you think. Max thought irritably. … wait, Sir?

"Who is this?" Max asked tiredly before letting out a long and unsuppressed yawn. He didn't recognise the speaker. He couldn't pickup any accent, but the guy's tone itself was incredibly deep. It was the sort of voice you would expect to here in a trailer for some Bruce Willis action movie.

"You do not know me Sir-" The voice replied

"Then don't call me Sir" Max interrupted, feeling himself getting snappy.

Again there was a pause on the other end of the line, though Max was sure he heard muttering going on as this person seemed to be conferring with someone.

"Could I ask if you treat all clients in this manner" The voice finally asked, seeming annoyed at Max's aggressive tone.

"You get customer service from me when Burger King stops serving its breakfast meal, now what do you want" Max replied tersely.

The sound of a sigh came from the line before the voice came back with "My name is Cobra, Sir. I was formally associated with the CIA. I was told by my former colleague, Mr Superball, that you might be able to help me with… a problem"

"I like the unnecessary pause before saying "problem". Very ominous" Max said, rubbing his eyes whilst trying to fishing around for his notepad. "And again, why do you keep calling me Sir?"

"… you are my Commander-in-chief, are you not?" Cobra replied, asking as if hoping the answer was no.

"Commander-in-chief? What are you…. Ohhhh wait, yeah, yeah…. I'm the President… keep forgetting that" Max said indifferently.

"I find that truly hard to believe, Sir. I was led to believe you are now serving your 3rd term?" Cobra said, now keeping his tone neutral.

I'm in my third term of office now specifically because I keep forgetting about it, Max thought, thinking back to one of the early conversations he had with Agent Superball. He had just given the agent a list of all the policies decisions he had just come up with the previous day.

(To guess at the contents of this list, the term "Go to war against" was used over 20 times in the document, and none of those times was it used in conjunction with any nation. One of the war declarations though had been used against the colour Beige and another against ambivalence.)

Upon receiving said list, Superball and Sam gave Max a simple deal. He could hold the near unlimited power his position of President of the United States gave him as long as he never actually used it. In return Superball and all the other civil servants would just continue handling the general governing of things and he could keep the mat from the Oval Office. The stranger thing was that no one afterwards wanted to run against Max. Not because running against Max would mean running against the person who beat Aid Lincoln in popular vote. It was more that no one wanted to run against Max… because, well… that would mean actually acknowledging Max was the acting president. And no body seemed to want to admit that was the case.

"Ignoring that, I have a job I hope you can help us with" Cobra continued

"Us?" Max asked, finally finding his notepad and pen.

"I am more of a representative for the client then the client itself. We can talk about the details of this case if you are willing to arrange a meeting." Cobra answered.

Max thought for a second. Did he really want two jobs going at the same time? And this one didn't sound like another missing husband or hoodlum problem.

After a few seconds thought Max just shrugged and said curtly "3:00pm tomorrow. This good for you and your buddy?"

"…yes, that should be fine" and with that Cobra hung up. Max could have found this rude but considering his behaviour during the call and the fact he planned to hang up a second later made him bite back that thought.

Need to get my sleep pattern back in order. I am not good like this…

Despite feeling the urge to just go back to bed, Max just noted down what details he had from the call and decided to make a start for the day.

Still need to meetup with Philips again, and then there's the matter of…

"What the hell?" Max said as he turned and spotted the main desk in the centre of the office, and the state it was in.

Nearly the entire surface of the desk had been covered with yellow sticky notes.

"What the? Who…?" Max said in a bewildered voice as he walked up to the desk and looked over the ocean of sticky notes.

They were all notes on the case. Random little points on the case, written down and stuck randomly to the desk.

"Weight of each box, number of gel packets in each box, address of warehouse, case number of the police investigation…. Did I do this?"

Max thought back to the previous night.

I came in, cleaned the place up, cleaning myself up... then… Oh yeah. I wanted to note down some things on the case whilst they were fresh.

It all came back to him. He had wanted, despite the late hour, to try and organise all the stuff he had on the case… admittedly there wasn't much but Max remembered feeling pretty full of himself the night before and feeling he needed to 'organise' himself like a "proper" detective.

He remembered first trying to put all the details up on the office board, and put pins and lines between them all like the setup Flint had in his office. That didn't feel quite right to Max, who felt he was just putting lines between facts in the case for no real reason. Then he thought about using Sam's method of organising a case… but then he remembered that just involved putting everything in a box in his coat.

And then…. then I just went 'the hell with it', got the pad of sticky notes and put everything to do with the case on each one and… just stuck them to the desk… was I drinking last night?

The 'organisational system' from what Max could see now, seemed to be just a chaotic mess of random pieces of the case. There didn't seem to be…

Oh yeah, I did it on purpose, Max recalled. I put all this crap out in a random mess because, only then did it all click.

And it did. Looking down again at all the details of the case, Max instinctive felt more sure about the details and their relationships with each then if he had put them together in any specific order. The chaos of it all did, in a weird undefinable way, seem to help

God, how messed up is my brain, Max thought, picking up the odd sticky note and putting it back down. Well, it didn't look pretty but can't think of a good reason to put all this away.

It was then Max looked up at the two notes that had been stuck to the desk lamp. One mentioning the 'Hiding Hole' and the other the 'Cool Nail'.

The Nail, Max thought as picked up the sticky note and nail itself which was laying beneath the lamp light. Still need to chase up on this. Need some… science done to it. Could ask Momma Bosco, but... there is the other notably science savvy girl I know. And it has been a while since we properly spoke

And, mind made up, Max made an appointment with the president of Egghead Industries.

An hour later, with the nail stored in a paper bag on the Desoto passenger seat, Max drove through the entrance to main headquarters of EGI. As Max parked the care and fished out the bag, he looked up at the building.

The building was not like any other in the city. Instead of the typical tall square structures that rose up into the sky, EGI headquarters was more of a… well… it was more like…

… OK, it was a skull. There was not point being vague on its shape. It was a giant skull. The structure was made of white painted metal and the only windows he could see were for the two giant red glow eyes. Looking at it, Max imagined whoever was hired to be the architect for the building had simply been handed a human skull and told "this isn't for inspiration, it's the blueprint". It practically screamed "Subtlety is for cowards".

Max, like the other employees used to the overwhelming sight, walked confidently through the front entrance. This time not bothering with the reception desk, Max walked straight to the elevator and selected the top floor. This had not been his first visit to the building so he had no problem navigating the corridors, office space and meeting rooms, eventually ending up outside the double doors to the CEO's office.

Max walked out, through the open hallways, office space and meeting rooms, right to the end double door. A PA with his office next to the main doors stepped in front of Max to bar his way.

"Hello Sir. Do you have an appointment?" He said in thick, rich British accent that made Max instantly think of an old style English Manor Butler. It held the same pompous tone Max associated with Butler's as well. Like he was holding back the word "Riffraff"

Max, deciding to show some restraint and also not in the mood to freak out this pen pusher, just said "Tell her Max from the Freelance Police is here"

To Max's surprise the PA's demeanour instantly changed from acerbic to welcoming.

"A, Mr Maximillian. Do beg my pardon. Please go right in."

Huh, must be on a short list or something.

And with that, Max walked through the double doors and into the largest office he had ever been in. It could easily fit 10 copies of his own office, with room to spare. Also whilst the design for the inside of the building returned to something similar to a normal working office building, this office went right back to the dark and evil skull vide. All the floor was black marble, with gothic pillars lining the path to the imposing looking desk at the end of the office. A desk by the way outlined by a giant glowing red window.

Oh I see. It's one of the Skull's eyes. Very cool. Max thought as he followed the path.

"I was wondering when you would visit the new office Max" Came a female voice from the chair behind the desk. The chair was, of course, turned away from Max.

"Please, please, please tell me you have a white cat with you" Max begged as he got to the desk and waited for the inevitable dramatic swivel. "Actually, wait, wait. Don't turn. First let's do the lines… um… Oh yeah." Max cleared his throat and said in his best Sean Connery impression "Do you expect me to talk"

An audible sigh came from the chair as (as Max hoped) the chair did a slow turn to reveal…!

… no one. "Um, what?" Max said as he stared at the vacant seat.

"By the way" Came a soft voice to Max's right shoulder, causing him to yelp and jump back. "That lines from Goldfinger. The whole evil lair and swivel chair is more Blofeld"

Max turned, getting his breath back as he stared up at who had snuck up on him. There stood the CEO of EGI, Egghead Industries. She stood a full 6 feet tall, towering over Max. Looking completely out of place in the office, instead of wearing something business like or dark and foreboding, she had on green hoody with a checkered red and blue skirt.

"Hello Max" She said smiling, pinching one of his ears affectionately.

Max, who usually would let no one get away with petting him without losing 2-4 limbs (depending on whether he disliked the contact or just wanted to send a warning), just grinned his shark tooth grin.

"Hey there, Geek"