The Threats, a Challenge
"The convict escaped the motorcade, he managed to slip in a couple of hand-made explosives in the car and bombed it half-way in the journey and witnesses were caught in the blast but an interview with a few people safe from the proximity saw the criminal jog out of the car his handcuffs were taken off him and he disappeared around a corner bend in the road but not before another bomb blew up in the stores nearby to cover his trail, we had officers who were caught in the blast even me who were lucky to escape but the bomb had succeeded not only in casualties but also in the distraction." The officer spoke solemnly in the car, his face blackened by the smoke and soot that covered his fair face making him look like one of those chimney sweepers in England and his uniform was now tattered and shredded by the obvious blast sending glass cutting the cop's arms and chest torso lines of red staining the white skin with some seeping down his chest like a river as he had a real frown of frustration and a feeling of guilt while Cody sat at the back seat in his plain white shirt and blue tie with a dark blue coat with black pants taking in the information that was provided for him, tapping his fingers impatiently as they drove down the street of the city honking and blaring their sirens at the intrusive traffics that were blocking differing sections of the intersection where the bombs had hit the streets of the city, the smoke was already visible in the sky already showing the detective the extent of the damage that he would have expected when they pulled up over the side of the sidewalk the car doors thrown open as the two men slid out of the car Cody pausing his hand clutched the roof of the door as his eyes caught the entire devastation in detail.
The street was a large mess with the entire motorcade still visible in front of them behind the extensive wraps of yellow tape that prevented a crowd from trying to break in while ambulances and other police cars formed a defensive circle around the scene. From Cody's point of view the motorcade had seemed to suffer almost no damage but as the cop led him down the street further he could see people in bandages sitting in ambulances as some drove off down to the hospital to transport the criticals to have immediate medical attention, their blaring sirens forcing traffic to halt in their daily tracks as clusters of people stood around the tape not too sure what to make or say of the tragedy that unfolded in front of them as Cody followed the police officer towards the police guards, their faces were softened and very shaken by the experience as they nodded to the detective and the cop letting them slip under the barrier of tape Cody took in the surroundings with a feeling of shock and terror at the sight his mouth unable to move in words as he just inclined his head around the whole crime scene. Where there were stores with their display windows and decorations now were just nothing but blackened charred remains of goods like blown up television sets and burnt images of plastic models and such, Cody giving a hiss under his teeth unable to even think of anyone caught in that kind of explosive blast with flames still licking at the burnt black sooted furniture of the furniture store and the clothes stores was also ruined with lines of shelves and various cloth liners blown into pieces and sections strewn among the building space with shards of glass from the row glittering like diamonds under the sunny spectrum of light on the scene as the horrendous stench of burnt flesh alerted the young detective to turn his face to two ambulance workers with grim faces and their gloved white hands gripped the bare wood of the stretcher the sight was common at such life-threatening scenes but it was what was on the stretcher covered under a white cloth that scared Cody to the bare core, his back shivered in fear as his eyes widened at the pure horror of the hand that was just left lying out of the covers but the difference was that it was a mere burnt charred black form of itself when it had flesh and was a part of an innocent person being destroyed by Casteon's own creation of destruction. If there was one thing that Cody read about the bomber in the criminal reports it was just one single word to describe his character as a whole, it had been used to tag many of history's serial killers who were taken to court and held no regret nor sorrow for anything, the one word that really made Cody fear for his job whenever he caught a criminal and heard their confessions: apathy. Cody really felt his heart go out to the victims who were affected by that bomb, but right now he refused to let his own personal feelings get in the intrusive way of him stopping the murderer in his tracks before he got other people to suffer the same fate his footsteps broke into a short run as his eyes fell on its target of officers standing at the front of the shops with confused looks on their faces, their faces were filled with wild debate as the detective approached them with a puff of breath to keep his head cooled in all the exothermic heat from the blast still fresh from the blown up car before them with twisted metal and other shapes of items strewn across the width of the road broken by a crater at the sidewalk as he spoke to the officers who had confused faces at the site.
"What happened?" Each officer turned their head towards the new arrival with the badge of the police department pinned on his coat pocket, their faces were stern as Cody eyed each man's nametag to memorize their names before he was guided by the lead sergeant's finger aiming at the stores opposite and at the blow up car which was used in the bombing as he spoke in a gruff Canadian accent almost like a bear growl.
"We have evidence from the witnesses, and came up with a really confused picture of what went on during that time. But here are the facts: at around this intersection the motorcade had stopped by the sidewalk when apparently one of the cars had run out of fuel and the guards went to have a check on the fuel tank to ensure that nothing had gone wrong with it and then the witnesses said that was when the first explosion occurred blowing up the car with the guards along with it, and then another explosion occurred at a second vehicle of the motorcade before the people saw the bomber escape but here is the twist…he did not have his handcuffs on him when he got out of the car and ran for it, but he was pursued by some civilians who planned to capture him and hold him instead they found themselves in the proximity of a third explosion coming from each of the six stores causing major injuries and I'm afraid to say that considering the dangerous range those people would have had only two seconds to duck out of the way…that bastard got himself captured and got away with more lives at stake." The gruff sergeant cursed multiple times underneath his bushy mustache the officers stood blankly at the area of the blast as Cody nodded in a grimace at the ruined street trying to hold back any sort of sadness before he felt a tap on his shoulder as he turned to address another officer, her face was quite concerned and her uniform wasn't tattered or affected but the face told him of a mental scar which indicated to him that this was her first time his face still stone as he spoke to her in an assuring voice.
"You scared?" She nodded grimly at the scene, as he stood there watching her face of pity at the ambulances, unable to find any way to actually comfort a fellow officer though he used to do that a long time ago for someone else. He just gave a pat on her back and without a word walked towards the ambulance but was stopped by the words of the female officer who had a worried expression on her face as she spoke in a soft American accent gesturing to a nearby ambulance, the view was however blotted out by a couple of officers standing there talking about any leads to the case and their missing fugitive as he heard the words clearly and attentively.
"There is a young woman who has been the best witness to the blast, she was working at an arts center when she looked out the window and saw the cars explode followed by the bomber escaping from his own vehicle and ran on foot towards the bend where the third bomb went off. She is quite traumatized and I thought that you could use your comforting skills to you know, calm her down…" Cody sighed in annoyance, his teeth chewed on his lip as he gave a small inner whine at the real naivety of his persona years ago as he swung his eyes away from the woman momentarily before he looked back at her with a deep seated glare as he folded his arms.
"Well, I'm not the type to do something like that…not anymore. But still, she's a witness and she is not going anywhere so when I'm done with her you take her to the hospital for a checkup and you bring her back to the police department for some questioning…"
"I really don't think that is necessary, Cody…you're getting tense." Cody turned around to see a fellow detective in a simple white shirt with a black tie and pants but wore no jacket, his frown at the young man's words as he shrugged off the cold stare. "She can just be questioned here and then let her go home, she has a rough day and she needs to recover…" He started to argue but was cut off by Cody who just shot a menacing glare and walked up to him, his hand grabbing him by the collar and pulled him close to his beady black abyssal eyes.
"Listen, I don't give a damn right now so you would do well to shut it and let me handle it my way and my way only. I am not taking kindly to your inappropriate suggestion that I am incompetent since that bloody gameshow and frankly I can manage without any of you sympathizers trying to mock me with your aloofness…thank you, you can just go back to the department." Cody said in a real stern voice releasing the detective from his vice grip, the officer and the detective both backed away from him as they nodded slowly and he gave each one a ruthless cold stare before he walked away muttering curses under his breath as he approached the ambulance entrance, currently he had enough of the people trying to judge his talents by the show he put up on the series and he hated it which made him the real 'cold-blooded devil' of the department to the point that even not one detective or officer would say yes to working with him, one exception was a officer who served him in a single case for a day before he quit the case unable to take the verbal abuse and demands that Cody placed on him and soon after he packed up and left the force for good three days later. Cody still managed to capture the criminal anyways without a deputy officer to supervise the case, and that gave him a better reputation than the one people placed on him in high school since the show…he continued to mutter something about the two incompetent people until he brought his head upwards to the ambulance doors wide open with paramedics still on the scene ready to sprint with stretchers or life-support systems, his eyes were drawn to the witness that was sitting on the edge of the ambulance with her black eyes and her dark clothing which were so reminiscent along with the same old teal and black hair sending his heart into a race as he ducked away to the shelter of the nearby ambulance his eyes glaring from a peer around the edge to just confirm his own suspicions as his own mind started to pour out various thoughts in his head.
"What is she doing here?" he spoke almost in a low growl of anger at the mention of her, his eyes catching on to the officer's words as he let out a moan and slapped the skin of his forehead with his own sweaty palm feeling the wetness slip on the surface of his foreskin as he tried to take deep breaths and calm himself. "Focus, Cody, focus! You do not like her, she is not your friend and just do your job and leave her to whatever happy life she has now." He told himself and walked along around the bend, his face holding its stern expression as he walked briskly to the ambulance towards the girl who was about his age sitting there with a blank slated face picking up the sound of footsteps coming for her as he watched her raise her head up and he gave a hiss through his teeth at the same old face he knew from before, his mind completely shutting off for a few seconds at the recognition of his old camper crush.
"G-Gwen?"
Amos Casteon kept on running, he continued to sprint continuously down streets and past the intersections until he finally stopped short of himself to get into the dark safety of an alleyway which to his good luck was empty and no life was present at the time. Good, that was the time that he had escaped from his captors and he was satisfied with the whole plot…it all worked properly and efficiently that even he the planner was really shocked at the results: surely those guards should have realized that by then they had their fuel on full but they just had to waste their time checking on the gas and such giving him time to formulate the rest of his plan by he casually asking for a cigarette from his gullible guards before his own captors went to check on the petrol problem, he took the stick in both hands and lit it with the lighter before he tossed it onto the oil trail that he had created with a metal bottle he convinced them was alcohol causing the first explosion and his chance to wait patiently for the cops to rush onto the scene from their motorcade cars, allowing him to pick the keys off one of them which unlocked the cuffs as those keys always opened any handcuff. Once he got there, he just took out of his pocket of his suit a slim silver pen that shone in the sunlight of the street where all hell had broken loose and from there he had pressed the tip of it activating the second bomb he placed on the second and fourth cars behind and in front of him but just to be safe he blew up the very first car as well killing most of the cops or severely wounding them before he deemed it safe to exit, his face full of excitement and energy as he rushed down the street to freedom but the sound of civilians running after him made him turn towards them at the bend with a sneer as he pressed the tip of his pen thus resulting in the third explosion taking the stores and the would-be heroes out with a boom allowing him to make his hasty run of freedom. The police reports said that he could escape capture, well…this was the final time that this trick could be used to just cause such damage he doubted that by Canadian law he would be sentenced now to a death sentence instead of a psychiatric treatment for more than thirty years or so, but this was the second best option than to call on incompetent goons to do all the dirty work call it cynical and against the code of supervillains in comicbooks but this was real life and in his opinion it is better to do it yourself than having people to do it for you…it gets boring after a while.
"Well, well…I did say that you cops just never learn from your reports. I always find an escape route, easiest trick in the book to fool them completely but what to do with my life now?" The bomber said with a curious look on his face, but the answer was simply obvious enough and that was to create a total havoc in the city that tried to imprison him. Snapping his fingers to emphasise, he gave a sneer as he ran different scenarios of how to do it while he walked along with no fear of the cops chasing him at all as he passed a dumpster with his eyes gleaming at the young detective who captured him…he had managed to catch him, and such a potential challenge is very difficult to even pass up. Casteon ran his fingers in his hair which had been ruffled and yet it was not so messy as people thought, his mind had come up with a real cunning idea for his little challenger and that would involve him and the safety of the city itself, it was not just a rebellion by him but a test of the detective's strength against the law's greatest nemesis: anarchy. Smiling in glee, the bomber flapped his jacket properly and strode out into the shadows.
"Gwen." The voice caught the young girl off her guard as she snapped back to her reality and looked up at a familiar face she had not expected to even see or anticipated as she had a slight grimace on her expression her fingers grasping themselves in an intertwined position. Cody had changed a lot to her while he stood before her with a real serious expression, the goofy and smiling boy with rabbit choppers and his nerdy outfit had been exchanged for a real job at the police department and his badge brought her confirmation of his authority as she read the silver crest words, 'Detective'.
"Cody…it's been a while, I see you have a job now." She smacked herself internally at the horrible greeting towards him; she could have done better than that! He was her friend for god's sake and not some boy that she didn't want around for a long time, but then again she had not seen him for a really long time in years and that amount of time was something that she would most rather forget completely. She kept quiet, unable to even look or say much to the cop but Cody just replied with a false grin to hide any growing animosities towards her for the past few years and scratched his head in a moment of awkwardness: he haven't seen her and he kept telling himself that she wouldn't change at all from the girl who broke his heart completely but then again who knows if she was still with Mr. Juvy Boy and decided to play it safe.
"I do as stated here by the badge. Now I need to ask you a few questions, can you help me answer Gwen or are you going to keep on stalling our 48 hour limit?" Cody answered suddenly and the tone was cold and hard almost uncaring to his surprise, but what made it worse for him was that Gwen's face faltered for a moment in some shock and hurt that made him almost guilty for saying it but she just hung her head and replied softly her hands just squeezed tight in a grip. "Sure, I'll give whatever information you need." Cody just had a real deep frown on his face at not only his words but the expression on her face told him that she was not the only one who felt guilty about something else on her mind, his eyebrows raised interrogatively though he knew this witness and tried his best to comfort her feeling a vile feeling in his mouth as he did so by sitting next to her.
"Sorry Gwen, I am just dealing with the case as professionally as I can and right now. People will get hurt if I don't try to get the witnesses' testimonies out to the department or my boss can get really ticked at me." Cody said in an assuring tone as he watched her just wring her wrists nervously, her teal-black hair still covering her eyes with the sliding bangs, as she couldn't really find a proper response to his statement with the recent and past events between them. The detective just gave a sigh as he got up and spoke to her again, his face still hard and unforgiving as ever towards her as he took out a piece of paper and his pen to scribble his phone number and address on it passing the information on to the goth without a second glance.
"That is my address and phone number if you want anything, and if you excuse me I have to go off to the police department and start on the case immediately. You can move in with me if you want when times are hard, I usually sleep in my office and…yeah, that is it. Have a good day, Miss." He said nonchalantly, his eyes already drawn away from Gwen as he picked up the pace and left without looking at her again towards his squad car leaving the goth to ponder the cold conversation between them and just covered her face with her cold pale hands.
"We have a message from the criminal when you arrived, Codes. Apparently the chief wants you to hear it for yourself and try and respond to it accordingly, not too sure why." An officer in uniform spoke to Cody as he arrived at the police station, their shoes clacking on the polished floor passing by various detectives and officers who had come back to discuss the entire issue.
"Have you even seen the video yet, officer?" Cody asked subtly to which the officer merely shook his head in disagreement as he heard the next few words. "Great, shove it." Cody replied the officer and walked right into the chief's officer, his hand slamming the door shut loudly that it nearly startled all in the room who had already watched the end of the video and the detective picked up the faces of solemnest and rare uptight expressions aimed at his presence as he just shrugged each one off with a stare and spoke directly to the chief who was sitting in his own office chair his face was covered by his two hands wiping the exhaustion off his face and something else that Cody couldn't even pick on as he replied to him his fist balled on the desk where his nameplate was placed a sigh escaping the senior head.
"This tape, was delivered just around the time that you arrived and we managed to watch all of it but we thought that it might interest you or even intrigue you with the content. Take a good look yourself and I'll assign your next stage of the job." He stood up to leave along with the rest of the detectives, leaving Cody to ponder what the gesture was about as he stared at each one for answers but found none instead he just heard the shuffling of feet and the closing of the door behind him as he sighed in the silence of the office, his face just curiously looking at the tape which had been inserted into the slot as he eyed the single play button that was enlarged on the main menu next to the slot where he pushed it and the screen went black Cody sat at the edge of the table resting his rear on the wooden surface while he stared ahead to see the screen light up with the last ever face he wanted to see with a bright big sneer twisted to a sadistic smile.
"Amos Casteon here, hello Cody. I knew that you would be seeing this tape, and I was thinking about our last night capture and I have a proposition for you if you would care to hear it…or you are just not too bothered and let something really bad happen to the city itself, but then again you wouldn't like the latter. I have right now a challenge for you, someone of your smart capabilities could just see to it that you are a potential threat as a detective…so as all bugs need to be squished, so here's the deal: I have planted over 200 bombs in the cityscape in places you aren't able to find at all until I just detonate the button, but you don't want that do you? So I want you to be in the city asylum where I have personally taken temporary refuge for the moment, and all you have to do there is claim your prize…I don't want to spoil the surprise but let's just say that you will be meeting old friends, be there tonight and you may just be the hero you want to be." The image faded into the black fuzzy screen as Cody was left his eyes danced with the lines of the fuzz before he walked back out of the office with his face in a really blackened and incensed state as the chief continued with a real stressed face in his hands.
"If what he says is true then we are in big trouble, we cannot act out against the bombs or we will face total annihilation and he is the fourth biggest criminal acting in the Canadian country so we have no choice. Cody, your current assignment…is to get to the asylum and stop Casteon now or we will be blown to smithereens." Cody's mouth could not form any words dried out in his throat but he kept his cool demeanor as he replied this time in a quiet tone towards the chief who listened intently.
"Can I talk to my butler first back home? I don't want him to be upset that I am gone tonight...and while I am in the asylum, I have one last request." The chief already knew what he was going to answer as he nodded to the first request as the whole group of detectives braced for the inevitable as they leaned forwards in their seats, some unsure while others had a rough idea of what he was suggesting. "What is it?"
"Could I have one last evening with someone?" The chief instantly knew who he was referring to, as were the others who just hung their heads lowly in thought at the possibility that Cody was preparing for death if he failed, the chief merely picked up his cigarette and nodded solemnly in deep understanding.
"If it's about her, sure...go ahead."
End