challenge #4 alternate universes: In Peace, Vigilance part 2
Rating: T
Summary: Grey Commander and the Wardens have learned that Mayor Cailan Theirin is being held for ransom by Darkspawn at Ostagar Towers. Commissioner MacTir and the Denerim police department are already on the scene, but the ghosts of old enemies have come to haunt the mission.
Notes:
Part one posted here.
Doodles of the team's costumes coming soon!
Police Commissioner Loghain MacTir sipped his coffee and scowled across the police barricade at the decaying hulk that had once been Ostagar Towers. The first walls had gone up while he was a still a beat cop, a cocky rookie who saw the public housing project as a shining hope for a better, safer Denerim. It had long since become apparent that the only thing Ostagar represented was a failed experiment at the taxpayer's expense, no small amount of which had gone to line the pockets of contractors and city planners. Carmine Orlais' boys in city hall had grafted and outright stolen as much of it as they could get away with, which was a hefty sum in those days. Given how little money had actually been spent on concrete and re-bar, Loghain supposed it was a miracle the place was still standing.
What began as low-income housing had quickly become a slum by the time he made detective, and now it was even less than that. It was a wilderness within city limits. The buildings' crumbling floors and graffiti-scrawled alleyways stank of human refuse and sheltered the most vicious and desperate of Denerim's forgotten. Urban legends claimed that inhuman creatures crawled up through the sewers to make their homes there, mutated by industrial waste or maybe just sheer hate.
Commissioner MacTir did not hold with such nonsense. Wherever these Darkspawn punks came from, he doubted their origins were so exotic. Take a kid from half the foster homes or runaway shelters in Denerim, shave his head and file his teeth, hop him up on PCP or meth or whatever he can get his grubby little hands on, and you'd have a model Darkspawn recruit. Give him a three-month stretch in prison and he'd come out a lieutenant, ready to enthrall the next batch. If he didn't have a million other things to do in this town, Loghain was sure he could put the whole lot of them behind bars and end it inside a month. It wasn't like they were particularly organized, unlike Orlais...
“Commissioner.” Captain Cauthrien's voice at his elbow startled him out of his ruminations. He turned to find the woman behind him, sporting her usual no-nonsense ponytail and department-issued windbreaker.
“Captain,” Loghain responded, facing her. She held out a cellphone and a clip board.
“The district attorney would like to speak to you,” she reported. “And these papers need your signature.”
Taking them both with a nod of dismissal, Loghain turned back to the barricade, cradling the phone against his shoulder while he examined the paperwork on the roof of a police cruiser.
“Rendon,” he said by way of greeting.
“Loghain!” came the voice of District Attorney Rendon Howe on the other end. Loghain could just imagine him in that office of his with its view of fashionable downtown, practicing his putting with a whiskey glass while a flat screen tuned to the news nattered in the background. “I saw the press conference, Commissioner. Inspiring statement of confidence, as usual. What's the real situation?”
Commissioner MacTir looked over his shoulders for eavesdroppers before speaking frankly.
“We can't keep this up much longer. Draining the manpower of the entire department just because Cailan ditched his bodyguards to go to some glorified strip club...” Loghain growled.
“He has always been impulsive,” Howe agreed. A clinking sound announced a missed putt. “And if the situation with Orlais is as grave as you say it is --”
“I sent you the visitation tapes!” the commissioner cut in. “I'm convinced that Carmine Orlais is still running the organization from prison, and he's planning something big. Have you watched the last visit he had?”
“Just get me the proof that those gestures are a code and you'll have your supeona half an hour later. I can't charge him for scratching his nose too many times when his old lieutenant comes to see him.” Another clink of golf ball on glass, and a muttered curse. “Trust me, after how hard we fought to put him away, I'm prepared to do whatever I can to keep him there.”
“You remember what it was like, Rendon,” Loghain reminded him. “We couldn't trust anyone in city hall until we had Orlais behind bars. I still can't be certain he doesn't have moles on the Force.”
“Or in the DA's office,” Howe added. “So you believe the situation there is really that much of a powderkeg?”
“The place is a goddamn maze, not to mention hellishly unsound. We could lose an entire squad of men if a roof or a staircase decided to finally collapse. Do you know how many funerals I've attended for an officer killed in action?” Commissioner MacTir pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling old and tired. Somewhere behind him, Captain Cauthrien had returned, waiting with that air of contained impatience he knew so well. “These kids are cowards. If we storm in there, they're likely to go to ground anyway, and I'll have wasted good men without a single arrest to show for it.
“What is it, Cauthrien?”
“Sir, the Wardens are here.”
“What?” He looked over her shoulder to see that Osprey knock-off of theirs touch down in the parking lot some distance away. The local media vultures had already begun to snap pictures.
“They radioed to say your daughter asked for their help,” Cauthrien continued as the jet's thrusters kicked up grit.
“Anora?”
“I'm afraid so, sir.”
The two of them watched the freak show spill out of the jet's hatch, the gloved hands waving to the sickening pack of cameramen and news reporters. It disgusted him, the way the Wardens had the press eating out of their hands when by all rights they should be behind bars with Carmine Orlais. Had everyone forgotten what it was like to live in a city where the people in charge hid their faces? It didn't matter whether it was behind a bought politician or a colorful mask.
“What is it?” Howe asked on the other end of the line.
“Watch your TV. I'm sure it's breaking news,” Loghain sneered. “I have to go.”
“All right then, old friend. Watch your back.”
The commissioner snapped the phone shut and slumped against the cruiser, dull eyes observing the travesty with a morbid sense of detachment, like watching the aftermath of a car accident.
“They've offered their services to help rescue Mayor Theirin,” Cauthrien said after a moment. “What should I tell them?”
An idea was tickling the back of Loghain's mind. The city had grown complacent, but he would not let it surrender itself to a new autocracy after he had worked so long to rid it of another. He could nip this in the bud and save these people from themselves all in one go. It was like divine providence.
“Have them meet me in the strategy room,” Commissioner MacTir told her, scrawling his signature on the clipboard before handing it back to her. She looked at him strangely but didn't question him.
“Sir.”
As he watched her retreating back, blazoned with those bright yellow letters, Loghain took another sip of his coffee and smiled.
Summary: Grey Commander and the Wardens have learned that Mayor Cailan Theirin is being held for ransom by Darkspawn at Ostagar Towers. Commissioner MacTir and the Denerim police department are already on the scene, but the ghosts of old enemies have come to haunt the mission.
Notes:
Part one posted here.
Doodles of the team's costumes coming soon!
Police Commissioner Loghain MacTir sipped his coffee and scowled across the police barricade at the decaying hulk that had once been Ostagar Towers. The first walls had gone up while he was a still a beat cop, a cocky rookie who saw the public housing project as a shining hope for a better, safer Denerim. It had long since become apparent that the only thing Ostagar represented was a failed experiment at the taxpayer's expense, no small amount of which had gone to line the pockets of contractors and city planners. Carmine Orlais' boys in city hall had grafted and outright stolen as much of it as they could get away with, which was a hefty sum in those days. Given how little money had actually been spent on concrete and re-bar, Loghain supposed it was a miracle the place was still standing.
What began as low-income housing had quickly become a slum by the time he made detective, and now it was even less than that. It was a wilderness within city limits. The buildings' crumbling floors and graffiti-scrawled alleyways stank of human refuse and sheltered the most vicious and desperate of Denerim's forgotten. Urban legends claimed that inhuman creatures crawled up through the sewers to make their homes there, mutated by industrial waste or maybe just sheer hate.
Commissioner MacTir did not hold with such nonsense. Wherever these Darkspawn punks came from, he doubted their origins were so exotic. Take a kid from half the foster homes or runaway shelters in Denerim, shave his head and file his teeth, hop him up on PCP or meth or whatever he can get his grubby little hands on, and you'd have a model Darkspawn recruit. Give him a three-month stretch in prison and he'd come out a lieutenant, ready to enthrall the next batch. If he didn't have a million other things to do in this town, Loghain was sure he could put the whole lot of them behind bars and end it inside a month. It wasn't like they were particularly organized, unlike Orlais...
“Commissioner.” Captain Cauthrien's voice at his elbow startled him out of his ruminations. He turned to find the woman behind him, sporting her usual no-nonsense ponytail and department-issued windbreaker.
“Captain,” Loghain responded, facing her. She held out a cellphone and a clip board.
“The district attorney would like to speak to you,” she reported. “And these papers need your signature.”
Taking them both with a nod of dismissal, Loghain turned back to the barricade, cradling the phone against his shoulder while he examined the paperwork on the roof of a police cruiser.
“Rendon,” he said by way of greeting.
“Loghain!” came the voice of District Attorney Rendon Howe on the other end. Loghain could just imagine him in that office of his with its view of fashionable downtown, practicing his putting with a whiskey glass while a flat screen tuned to the news nattered in the background. “I saw the press conference, Commissioner. Inspiring statement of confidence, as usual. What's the real situation?”
Commissioner MacTir looked over his shoulders for eavesdroppers before speaking frankly.
“We can't keep this up much longer. Draining the manpower of the entire department just because Cailan ditched his bodyguards to go to some glorified strip club...” Loghain growled.
“He has always been impulsive,” Howe agreed. A clinking sound announced a missed putt. “And if the situation with Orlais is as grave as you say it is --”
“I sent you the visitation tapes!” the commissioner cut in. “I'm convinced that Carmine Orlais is still running the organization from prison, and he's planning something big. Have you watched the last visit he had?”
“Just get me the proof that those gestures are a code and you'll have your supeona half an hour later. I can't charge him for scratching his nose too many times when his old lieutenant comes to see him.” Another clink of golf ball on glass, and a muttered curse. “Trust me, after how hard we fought to put him away, I'm prepared to do whatever I can to keep him there.”
“You remember what it was like, Rendon,” Loghain reminded him. “We couldn't trust anyone in city hall until we had Orlais behind bars. I still can't be certain he doesn't have moles on the Force.”
“Or in the DA's office,” Howe added. “So you believe the situation there is really that much of a powderkeg?”
“The place is a goddamn maze, not to mention hellishly unsound. We could lose an entire squad of men if a roof or a staircase decided to finally collapse. Do you know how many funerals I've attended for an officer killed in action?” Commissioner MacTir pinched the bridge of his nose, feeling old and tired. Somewhere behind him, Captain Cauthrien had returned, waiting with that air of contained impatience he knew so well. “These kids are cowards. If we storm in there, they're likely to go to ground anyway, and I'll have wasted good men without a single arrest to show for it.
“What is it, Cauthrien?”
“Sir, the Wardens are here.”
“What?” He looked over her shoulder to see that Osprey knock-off of theirs touch down in the parking lot some distance away. The local media vultures had already begun to snap pictures.
“They radioed to say your daughter asked for their help,” Cauthrien continued as the jet's thrusters kicked up grit.
“Anora?”
“I'm afraid so, sir.”
The two of them watched the freak show spill out of the jet's hatch, the gloved hands waving to the sickening pack of cameramen and news reporters. It disgusted him, the way the Wardens had the press eating out of their hands when by all rights they should be behind bars with Carmine Orlais. Had everyone forgotten what it was like to live in a city where the people in charge hid their faces? It didn't matter whether it was behind a bought politician or a colorful mask.
“What is it?” Howe asked on the other end of the line.
“Watch your TV. I'm sure it's breaking news,” Loghain sneered. “I have to go.”
“All right then, old friend. Watch your back.”
The commissioner snapped the phone shut and slumped against the cruiser, dull eyes observing the travesty with a morbid sense of detachment, like watching the aftermath of a car accident.
“They've offered their services to help rescue Mayor Theirin,” Cauthrien said after a moment. “What should I tell them?”
An idea was tickling the back of Loghain's mind. The city had grown complacent, but he would not let it surrender itself to a new autocracy after he had worked so long to rid it of another. He could nip this in the bud and save these people from themselves all in one go. It was like divine providence.
“Have them meet me in the strategy room,” Commissioner MacTir told her, scrawling his signature on the clipboard before handing it back to her. She looked at him strangely but didn't question him.
“Sir.”
As he watched her retreating back, blazoned with those bright yellow letters, Loghain took another sip of his coffee and smiled.