allthatgoes | i mean, they've got hordes, don't they? (Reply)

5:06pm
Newcastle
Outside, nothing much was going on.

"Yeah, man," said Cary Vaughn-Blair, staring him down, "but the guy's gone and a little girl is dead. Sure it was a stray shot, but you can't really come off and say you have no idea what happened here. Whether you had anything to do with the crime or not. You can't even do that."

Dorian Green shrugged, looping his thumbs in his beltloops and shooting a glance at the attorney who had, for some really, really weird reason, come with the cops. "Do I gotta answer that?"

"I would advise telling your story," Bianca Rheys said thinly, and Green noted she sounded American. "Seeing as you're not actually involved in the crime, you stand nothing to lose and and the city stands something to gain if you state what you saw."

"You don't think he'll shoot me too? I mean, they've got ... hordes, don't they? All with their little ones and the Dorito man?"

"The Dorito man?" Bianca whispered, but her husband's face had gone completely cold.

"A Bandido," Vaughn-Blair said, exhaling. "You're saying this guy was a biker?"

"Pair of 'em. There were two guys, one of 'em split one way and one the other. Shot at each other, and one of 'em hit the gal," Green explained. "You sure I'm not gonna get in trouble?"

"You'll be fine," said the lawyer, suddenly tenser. She could sense that something was wrong with Vaughn, and that meant something was wrong with her. Not partners, not lovers anymore, but it still meant something was wrong, because they were still family.

"If you want protection, you'll --"

"Suspect on location!" cut in a yell from inside the bar. "Suspect on --"

And that yell was cut off by gunshots.

5:00 pm
Newcastle
Ryan Bertrand had a problem.

He had a problem of loyalty, really, since going through this Newcastle tavern was the architecturally impossible triple-edged sword. He hated Newcastle because of his own past -- sure, it seemed to be all about coal, but he'd spent some unpleasant evenings in the place. And he hated Northumberland because Bianca hated Northumberland, and so did Vaughn, but just because Bianca did. Yet a young girl was hurt, nearly killed, and for some bizarre reason, it had become their case.

Not that they knew when they became Interpol. Bianca, sure. She actually worked with Interpol at times. Bertrand and Vaughn-Blair, though, well, they were just the Metropolitan Police. Maybe they should have been more, for the undercover work they did, but they weren't. Why they would be in Newcastle, working a case for Newcastle, who had had plenty of their own problems in the past, they never could have explained.

Going through rubble, Bertrand cased out the scene, taking photos with his Telo. He wasn't the crime scene unit, but he was the mortuary liason, and Duncan (and he hoped to god it was Duncan who caught this one, she was the only ME who didn't get emotional when removing evidence from the living, and the only ME he had the patience to have lunch with) tended to like to see everyone's side of a crime.

And that's when he heard the noises.

Snapping his head up, he saw a man behind him, a man he knew, or had known -- a young and clever fellow by the name of Zipper. Unfortunately, Bertrand didn't know his real name.

"What are you doing here, Rat?" Zipper said in a sing-song kind of voice. "Living up to your name? Rattin' on people? Because it's not all that flashy, y'know. Battle might still like you, Caper might deal, but becoming a CI is bad enough. Now you're just all the way over."

"What are you doing here?" asked Bertrand.

"Being your worst nightmare," the Bandido replied. "Being your worst nightmare is always gonna be my job, even if we're not Rock Machine anymore. Once Rock Machine, always. Fully patched and proud. And what are you?"

"I'm --" Bertrand bit back the urge to stammer. This kind of confrontation was something Corin usually got into, not him, and Corin generally did it by mistake.

"You don't even know. But you're nothing, man."

"Can we talk?" he asked. "You don't seem openly hostile --"

"Don't seem openly hostile?" Zipper rolled his eyes. "What language! Yeah, I'm not openly hostile. I also didn't come here to start a shootout."

"Your sarcastic tone indicates you might be speaking in negative inclination, and that might be a veiled confession."

There was a long silence, in which Bertrand thought Zipper might have cracked.

He didn't.

Instead, he pulled a gun, and Bertrand drew his own.

"Put it down, Zip."

"Go away, Rat. This isn't your battle."

"Put it down."

"This isn't your battle!" He turned off the safety and stepped up to Bertrand, who at that point had three choices. Try to talk him down and save an old loyalty, or try to concentrate on the case.

It was an easy choice.

"Suspect on location!" he yelled out, and then repeated it into his radio. The second that happened, Zipper started blindly shooting. Bertrand jumped up onto a pile of boxes, over the bar and behind it, praying the trapdoor that had been down there once still opened.

It didn't.