A/N: I'm not known for making things easy on my characters. Probably because I get so many things piled on myself...Meh.
PS: the stories in Hugh's last rant are all from true Blotters. They're worth reading.

CHAPTER 04: QUESTIONING

Pier 60's Health Fitness Center was a hundred-and-fifty square feet of echoing activity inside a facility that accommodated over four dozen sports activities. The AC systems couldn't counter the energized body heat it trapped, and though Hugh only sat at the sidelines of one of its basketball courts, sweat gathered in the most unflattering places on his body.

"How does this place not kill you?" he asked.

Donna ignored him, preoccupied with the nimbleness of Noah's sports wheelchair. Her sneakers squeaked against the hardwood court as she spun, but her basketball dribbled just once before a muscular arm batted it away. Hugh watched in awe at how the Grecian man teetered on one wheel, bounced the ball towards the opposite hoop, and then regained his balance and speed in time to sink the shot.

"Ugh!" Donna panted and pulled at her white and blue jersey to help airflow over her torso. "This is embarrassing," she added in a grumble.

Noah spun his chair around one-handed, spinning the ball on the fingertip of his other hand. "L-O-S-E," he said with a giant grin. "One more letter and I win."

"Only because you're lower to the ground and don't have to dribble the ball as long."

"Don't be a sore loser."

"I haven't lost yet, Noah Boa!"

Hugh laughed—a startling sound even for himself.

"Got something to say, Hughy? I don't see you gearing up for a match."

"Please," Noah snorted while dropping the ball in his lap, "he'd probably cramp from all those tacos he had for lunch.

Hugh chose not to confirm his lunch choice and leaned forward on the metal bench, unbuttoned dress shirt parting to reveal his damp tank top. "I'm just glad to see you this way," he said.

Noah's tanned face blanched. "You're happy I'm in a wheelchair?"

"No, no." The off-duty detective shook his head. "I'm happy to see you...out of bed."

Tension froze the trio, and a half minute passed before any of them garnered the courage to look at each other.

"I don't deserve that credit," Noah said. "If it weren't for Don, I'd be festering in bed sores and painkillers."

Donna gave a face-splitting smile. "If I didn't kick your butt into gear, who would?"

"A hot nurse."

"Yeah, right. You'd just oversell the role of poor, newly-paraplegic Grecian god and take every chance for her to manhandle you. That wouldn't be progress."

"Depends on your point of view."

"Mine. Thank Wendell for my extended leave, yeah? You see this?" The blonde lifted her jersey to unmodest heights, showcasing the deep indent that formed a half-moon scar from below her sports bra down her diaphragm. "If it were for my punctured lung and broken ribs, I'd have been back at the precinct instead of babysitting you."

Don laughed as her shirt fell back into place and Noah rolled his eyes, but Hugh found it difficult to take their teasing to heart. The blonde's reinstatement had been postponed twice due to infection, and when she did stabilize, she used whatever vacation days she had saved up to ran to Noah's side. She'd have to make a choice soon, though; her window to return to work diminished by the day and the deadline was fast approaching.

"If it were possible," Hugh started, "would you both return after what happened?"

"We aren't the first cops to be wounded on duty," Donna answered.

"You said we were just in that cyborg's way, right?" added Noah. "A freak accident."

The African-American wiped perspiration from his forehead, but it built back up in seconds. "People still feel bitter about these sorts of thing, even when they're accidents. Sometimes more so."

"I've gone through all the stages with my trauma therapist, Hugh. Thanks."

"I just need you to know, she never meant for this. She—"

Noah waved. "Was blinded by grief. Has her own handicaps. Not a bad guy, not like the other cyborg. Yadda, yadda."

"Noah doesn't blame her anymore, Hughy."

"What about you?"

Donna's wide mouth drew down at the corners as she bounced the basketball Hugh never noticed she stole. "I try not to. I mean, people hurt each other by accident all the time, but..."

"You don't have to trust in her," Hugh said. "Trust me. Please. I'm not saying I know what it feels like."

"You're right," Noah interjected, "you don't."

"You weren't the only one who lost something that day!" Hugh raised his left arm, holding it forward to give his friends the best view possible of his malformed stub.

The Grecian glared. "Least you kept your job."

"Barely. I have my title, but Wendell restricts me more and more."

"I'd rather have some fieldwork than a damn pity metal."

"I know. But you're lucky you survived at all."

"Lucky? Do I look lucky to you?" Noah spread his arms, which brought attention to how much his lower half had withered away over the last year. "I was robbed of my livelihood, my passion!"

"I bet you could still rundown perps in that chair better than anyone with working legs."

"Joke all you want."

"I'm actually honest. Especially if we're talking about Doughnut."

"That fucker—" Noah stopped short like he just remembered he shared public space with other fitness members. He glared at a couple teenagers who had looked ready to ask to use the court, and they scattered when he growled. "Only good thing he's ever done is shoot Elrich."

"And keep some of our secrets."

"That's not good," Donna spat. "He's a ticking time bomb. I wish I could just throw him in the Pit with Mahoney."

'Ah, the Pit. I forgot about that. Probably because Blaine pretends he never went there.'

"I can't believe you have those sorts of connections," Noah said in an undertone. Workout activity throughout the gymnasium disguised the sensitive topic, yet the Grecian wheeled to the bench anyway, acting as if he wanted a water break rather than privacy. "You know, right?"

Hugh scratched at his short afro, sight on the blonde whose dark eyes twinkled with amusement. "I know."

"Oh, knock it off, you guys," Don added. "Everyone has secrets."

The men shared a grimace, and Noah said, "No one wants your secrets."

"Too late. Besides, if we never detained Mahoney, Blaine never would've had the information to find a back-way to Hugh."

The detective hummed, even though the knowledge had changed hands to the Hamatos instead. "What happened to him, by the way?"

"Hey, the Pit are a people of their word." Why did the blonde sound so defensive? "We connected him with someone who can help him...disappear."

"That someone wouldn't happen to be called Nom de Guerre, would they?"

"How'd you know?"

"His name has been coming up more often these days."

"His?" The blonde quirked a brow. "The Nom de Guerre we know is a woman."

Hugh opened his mouth for a reply that fell short when his cell phone buzzed against the metal bench. He unlocked the touch screen to reveal a text from Blaine and not half-way through reading it, he stood.

"Something wrong, Hugh?" Noah asked.

"I gotta go to the precinct."

"What for?"

"They found someone of interest to me."

"You have an impressive rap sheet, Kid," Hugh said. He leaned over the metal table in the Nineteenth Precinct interrogation room, flipping through a file belonging to sixteen-year-old Zeke Phelps. "You got no influential parents, real or foster. No judge associates. No job. No stable school attendance. No ties at all, really. Damn. How do you avoid stints in Juvie?" The detective raised his gaze to a skeleton-sized teenager in oversized clothes who looked to have last showered ten years ago.

"Guess I'm just that good," Zeke answered.

"Not good enough to avoid being snagged, apparently."

"Fuck off." The teenager slumped in his bolted-down seat, glaring through frazzled hair as blue as his eyes. "Just write me up so I can get outta this cage already."

"It's not that simple this time around, Zeke."

"Call me Edge. It's what everyone in Harlem knows me as."

"Not the most popular tagger, though, are ya? Baker's Outreach Hotel, in particular, has a stack of complaints about you and your work."

"Not everyone can handle the truth."

"The political stands against the EPF? Now, those are founded. And shows pretty good skills, I gotta say. But the slurs towards residents?" Hugh wiggled his only hand, palm-down. "Not so much."

The blue-haired punk smirked. "Then you obviously never met them."

"And that would be where you're wrong. Except for Peter Bailey. First time I met him, he was street pizza, so no credit there."

"Don't you have bigger things to concern yourself with than me?"

"Not since the Twenty-Twelve Attack, no. Losing a hand makes your superiors doubt your capabilities. Just FYI." The detective laughed, at first bitterly because of his circumstances then genuinely when Zeke leaned away to avoid the bubbled stump where Hugh's left hand had once been attached. "Don't end up like me, Son."

"I'm not your son."

"You're not anyone's son, it seems like."

Slowly, Zeke's smirk weakened, chains rattling when his cuffed hands fell into his lap. "Parents just screw kids up," he said. "Especially foster parents."

"You've been juggled around so many homes, I pity the fool who had to deal with the paperwork."

"They've gotten a break recently."

"Yeah. This latest runaway stunt of yours is almost worthy of a Guinness award."

"I figured if anyone was going to make money off me, it'd be me."

"Were any of you fosters unfit or abusive, Zeke?"

The teen sneered when Hugh leaned forward. "Doesn't matter. All I gotta do is hold out another two years. Then you guys can't touch me."

"For delinquency of a minor, true. The other stuff?" The detective pressed for more information with raised brows and a practiced look he had often used when convincing Damien and Jezebel out of the PDs. Zeke, however, retreated further under his frayed hair, narrow face seeming longer with his stern frown. "Look, I'm here to help."

"I've heard that before."

"From who? Detective Erlich? Officer Eckly?"

"Isn't it Deputy Chief Eckly now?"

Hugh made a face as he straightened up, glancing at the camera whose red light reminded him that his time undetected in the interrogation room was limited. "Consider your position, Zeke," he said in a lower voice. "Think about all those people you've dealt with. Donald Horton. Peter Bailey. Kyle Erlich. Know what they got in common? They're dead."

"So?" Zeke shrugged. "I still have plenty of connections who're still kicking."

"Like Sharon Hamlin?"

"Maybe."

Hugh drew in a deep breath, less for show and more so to gauge his approach when he began pacing around his chair. "You've been walking a dangerous line. Snitches aren't the most popular people on the street."

"Yet they come to me anyway. Because I'm great at what I do."

"Believe me, I know. It seems Doughnut and Kyle had even used your services. Information to avoid jail time? Smart, in a twisted way. They're gone now, though. Without those strings to pull, how much longer do you think you can keep up your work?"

"I'll find new strings. The police need me."

"You think?"

"Even your undercover pigs don't know what useful dirt lies in New York's underbelly."

"But you do." The long-faced teen smiled, and the ambiguous act stopped the detective in his tracks. He slid before his seat, leaned over the table on his one hand then pointed his stub at Zeke in place of a finger. "Be careful with who you think you have power over. Make deals with the wrong people..."

"That supposed to scare me?"

"You don't like the EPF, do you?"

Zeke hunched under Hugh's whisper, speaking in kind, "Point?"

"Neither do I. But if you don't cooperate, that's who you'll be answering to."

"They aren't cops."

"Want to know a secret?" The man leaned closer. "They may as well be. There's an EPF goon in every precinct. Including this one."

"He's a supervisory ornament. Can't do nothin'."

"Maybe not himself. He can pass on the reports about your murals, though. Bishop isn't generous; he learns you're responsible for all that anti-EPF crap, he'll have you slapped with Conspiracy to Commit Offence and Unrest against a Police-Ordained Institute through Public Vandalism. It would be the first such conviction—history-book-worthy—although I sense you wouldn't want that outcome. See?" Hugh leaned down to rest on his elbows, at where Zeke's chains were anchored to the cold table. "Most offenses are expunged after a minor reaches legal age. That still leaves you two years in Juvie. And the kids there? They're worse than adults. Little psychopaths and sociopaths still in search of their MO. That experimentation is taken out on those in the lowest tier of their hierarchy. Newcomers. They're also less keen on snitches, even if it benefits them. A rat is a rat. And rats? They're pests."

Zeke's complexion had become flush, despite how he fought for control over his emotions. He kept his chin up, blue eyes void, and skeleton-figure still. But the detective had dealt with too many gangsters to fall for the facade. The teen wanted to pretend he still held the advantage. He didn't. And Hugh's stare bored into him until chains softly clanked.

"What did you have in mind?" Zeke asked in a low voice.

"A deal. Not like Doughnut's or Kyle's, though. I'm not letting you off the hook. But if you can tell me something I need to know, I can lessen your consequences."

"Would your doubting superiors listen?"

Hugh smiled. "Don't need a hand to talk, now do I? You may know Manhattan's underbelly. I know it's police force. And how to avoid the EPF connections that run through it."

"Should you be saying all that in front of the camera?"

"Leave those details to me."

Blue eyes narrowed. "Why do I get the feeling you aren't the one who's supposed to interview me?"

"Taco Joe's makes a great bribe."

"What?"

"Never mind. Just tell me what I need to know, and I'll keep you away from the crazies."

"And what do you need to know?"

"Everything you have on Miriam Summers."

"Summers?" Zeke fidgeted in his seat.

"That a problem? Her sister and I are looking for her."

"Summers is"—the teen licked his lips—"a strange contact."

"...You're scared of her."

"You would be too if you knew what she could do."

"And what can she do?"

Zeke glanced up. "You wouldn't believe me."

"Son." Hugh blanched. "I've seen a grown man in a diaper trying to direct traffic with his martial arts skills, which sucked. A butt-naked lady thought an elevator was her shower. There's a guy by Central Park Zoo who insists his neighbor is mind-controlling local dogs and to protect them, we should add an anti-forcefield around those animals before they go outside. Hell, someone's asked us how to 'legally kill' someone. If you can top suspicious peanuts and delinquent squirrels, try me."