Ogilvy pulled up beside the bar. The air instantly filled with the sound of loud music, laughing men and glass occasionally shattering. The sign above the door read "Den of Decay" in bright green words stylised with slimy drips. He turned to Aahmiah, whose current expression was hidden behind the shiny red metal that protected his face. Aahmiah was looking out his passenger window, wondering why anyone would feel compelled to purchase alcohol from a place that reeks of vomit and garbage. Ogilvy tapped Aahmiah on the shoulder and they both faced each other. "Ready?" asked Ogilvy.
"Better now than later when the sun has set," replied Aahmiah in a hesitant tone.
"Right on," chanted Ogilvy with false enthusiasm. He removed his combat machete from his left leg holster and inserted it into his chest compartment for quick access. Aahmiah pulled out his revolver and checked the barrel for bullets. Satisfied, he spun the barrel and knocked the latch, locking the barrel in place before placing it back into his right leg holster. They both exited the car in synchronisation and marched into the bar. They stopped in front of the door and took a look at all the current occupants of the bar. Looters. Every single one of them. Tables and chairs rattled with each guitar chord that stormed out of the speakers that sat at each corner of the ceiling. The duo couldn't hear their own thoughts over the noise that almost deafened them.
Ogilvy approached the bartender while Aahmiah stood and watched from the doors. He leaned onto the bench and put two fingers together into the air, signalling for service. The bartender put down the mug he was polishing and walked over slowly. "What could I get a fine lookin' Fed like you?"
"Oh, nothing just yet," said Ogilvy. "Just wanted to say you'd think a band was playing live here."
"A shithole like this couldn't supply enough room for any actual band to play y'know?" the bartender stated. "You gonna order a drink or make conversation? 'Cause this ain't a shitty chatroom."
"I'm looking for something that will help me unwind," said Ogilvy as he stretched his arms behind his head. "I was just fired and I'm too pissed to give a shit what I put in my system."
"I've got what ya want," nodded the bartender. "Come 'round back, don't want none of these fucks knowing you got this stuff on you." He laughed heartily. Ogilvy got up from the bench and followed him into the back. As they reached the end of the alley, the bartender reached around into his denim vest and pulled out a small glass vial of a black liquid. He looked up to Ogilvy, and then he worked out that Ogilvy was not fired, and was not after drugs.
"Gangs of looters are committing suicide and I want to know why," demanded Ogilvy.
"You didn't have to lie to me, could've just asked," said the bartender, cooperatively. "It's worrying for me because dead looters don't pay shit when they dead. The name's Archie. I can keep an ear out for you lot if you promise to leave me and my drug selling alone."
"We don't need extra ears, Archie," exclaimed Ogilvy in a threatening tone. "We've got ears everywhere you couldn't imagine ears would fit. What I want is what you know and I want it now before me and my partner destroys more than a few windows."
"Woah now, this bar is all I have. I'm telling you, I know nothing!" Archie was visibly scared. "But if you want to know the goings-ons within the streets, go find Mernov. He's knows everything about the now and before so he'll have your answer. Now please, leave me and my bar alone alright?"
"Right." Ogilvy walked back inside and nodded towards Aahmiah. Ogilvy grabbed a drink from one of the tables, retracted his mouthguard and drank. The looter it belonged to wasn't happy about having his drink stolen.
"You gon' pay for a new one you ignorant shit!" he yelled. Ogilvy ignored him and kept walking towards the exit. As he walked out, Aahmiah pulled out his revolver and shot one of the speakers before following Ogilvy. The looter pursuing Ogilvy froze in shock. The looters that remained in the bar started to get rowdier after hearing the gunshot, laughs turning into yelling. Ogilvy looked at Aahmiah.
"Was that really necessary?" Ogilvy asked.
"Yes," said Aahmiah almost instantly. He got into the car while Ogilvy stared back at the bar. He took a moment to think about how such a rusty pile of junk could mean so much to a man. Aahmiah knocked on the car window from the inside, pulling Ogilvy out of his thought.
The duo arrived back at the New Eden Federal station. Aahmiah returned to his office and Ogilvy sought out Pilkins. Pilkins was not at his office. He waited at Pilkins' office until he returned from wherever he could be. When Pilkins arrived at his own office, he was startled to see Ogilvy had already made his way in and was staring out the window. "If you didn't have your helmet off," said Pilkins, "I'd have pinned you as Ilupen, what with your staring out the window like he does."
"Great," Ogilvy said. "I need you to gather intel on a lead."
"I'm your guy."
"He's a looter named Mernov," instructed Ogilvy. "A bartender downtown told us he'd have better experience with the current affairs. I'm not sure if I'm walking into a trap or not so I want to know whether or not he exists, and if he does, everything about him. I want to know his codenames, his activities, his frickin' pet dog's name, everything."
"Alright then, I'll send an invoice to the research team off-world," replied Pilkins. "Give us maybe 24 hours."
"Take your time." Ogilvy patted Pilkins on the shoulder and walked out the door. Pilkins wiped his shoulder as though he had been given a dead arm. Ogilvy was on his way to the car, only to be stopped again. He turned to face the interceptor. "What now?" he said, in an impatient tone. It was Aahmiah.
"Sorry to stop you from going home and being angry at everything," said Aahmiah, "but you've got a visitor at your office."
"Who?"
"La Roux."
"Oh for crying out loud," said Ogilvy. "The hell does she want?"
"Hehehe, you," Aahmiah said with a giggle of pure schadenfreude.
"And you couldn't tell her to bugger off?"
"Nope, not at all."
"Bloody fuck."
"Have fun you two." They both returned inside the building. Ogilvy made his way to the office while Aahmiah went back to his office, trying ever so hard to hold back the laughter. Ogilvy walked into his office to find it completely empty. This could only mean one thing.
"Get out," instructed Ogilvy. "You can't hide from me in my own office."
"You look good today," said La Roux. "Did you do something to your hair?"
"Get out," Ogilvy repeated. La Roux crawled out from on top of his ceiling fan and lowered herself down without making a sound. Her black skin-tight suit almost blended in with the dark corners of the walls and would have disappeared completely had her goggles not been powered on.
"What's the magic word?" La Roux said, teasingly.
"I'm not in the mood, Roux," said Ogilvy. "I picked up another case today and I don't need you doing the polar opposite of your job and getting in the way."
"My job is to make sure everything is fine," she corrected.
"In the battlefield, not in my detective line."
"Oh, especially outside the battlefield." Ogilvy was losing his patience.
"I won't ask again," he warned one last time.
"You know, you'd be slightly threatening if you didn't have such a bad Afrikaans accent. We all know people with accents from the Dark Ages are stuck in the Dark Ages."
"Get out of my office!" La Roux opened up his office window then crawled out and up the building. Ogilvy gave a heavy sigh and sat down at his office desk. Dealing with that dreaded SpecFor tracker always takes a lot out of him. He laid his head on his desk and rested a little before going downstairs and into Aahmiah's office. Inside, Aahmiah sat in the corner of his office, Dark Ages relaxation music playing from his armour speakers, his helmet still on. "What in the world are you doing Aahm?" asked Ogilvy.
"Relaxing," said Aahmiah. "I need to be ready for our upcoming investigation. I don't know how dangerous it will be so I am going to try and be in top physical and mental condition."
"Alright, you keep doing that. I'm about to finally go home."
"Don't let anyone stop you." Ogilvy nodded towards him and left the building. He hovered his hand over his car door handle just in case anyone wanted to interrupt him. He looked around a little bit and, finally satisfied that he may go home, he plunged his hand towards the handle. What he felt was not the door handle, but someone else who happened to be cloaked and standing right in front of him.
"La Roux, can you kindly go be useless somewhere else?" sighed Ogilvy. La Roux deactivated her cloaking and materialised in front of him, her hand on the door handle.
"Fine then," she sputtered. "It's not like I was going to be a gentleman and open the door for you."
"You're a woman, an annoying one too. It's meant to be the other way around."
"I'm right, you are stuck in the Dark Ages." Ogilvy opened his car door and got in. Before he finished closing his door, La Roux had opened the passenger side door and stood there. He reached over to close the passenger door only to find out that La Roux had opened the driver door. She nudged him over to the passenger seat and buckled herself in the driver seat.
"Get out of my car," Ogilvy calmly said. La Roux stared him in the eyes through her bright gold goggles and shook her head. "Please don't do this." She shook her head again. "Who the hell recruited you?"
"Same guy that recruited you," replied La Roux.
"And who would that be?" asked Ogilvy.
"Dunno," said La Roux before she pulled back the gearstick and slammed the accelerator. The car sped off, in directions known only to La Roux.
-{Aahmiah Trinary: Monologue File #00306}
TIMESTAMP: 02/01/0011
I don't like what happened to the world. I spent countless hours reading about the Dark Ages; before Orus, before intergalactic space travel, before the Federation. Back then, the world was simple. We were all humans and we carried on, researching better technologies and just finding new ways to keep everyone happy. Or so the archives told me. No one would know exactly anymore, there's no way. But I can tell you that the consortium only brought a massive step down in terms of civilization. There is no government anymore, only planets with their own rules and laws. If you weren't a part of the Federation, you were a part of the not-so-secret Secreta. If you weren't a part of the Secreta, you were a looter. If you weren't a looter, you were nothing. You were extra human population dumped on a "civilian" planet with only the hope of perpetual tranquillity keeping you alive. No one cared about you, you were outside of everyone's concerns. In other words, you only meant something to the ones you died for. Even then, if the acid rain didn't dissolve your gravestone, it was scrapped for brouzofs.
{End Holonote}-