MPC 63B - Channel 3 Report
Jun 18, 2019 5:29:37 GMT
Post by Gazimon on Jun 18, 2019 5:29:37 GMT
MPC Name:
And For Our First Question...
MPC Number:
63B
Reward Requested: Bits, please!
Cold, sterile light suddenly shone from above, glaring in Gazimon's ill-adjusted eyes like so many judgmental suns. His pupils contracted near-instantly, sending a sea of miniature stars swimming behind his eyes, and leaving him blind and disoriented for what felt like an easy eternity. A nocturnal creature--if by habit, and not physiology--the mammal digimon more likely took several minutes to adjust to the vicious change in luminosity, and even after he had, it left him with a mild headache. The room he found himself in didn't help. As cold and clean as the light attempting to purify the dark corners of his core, it was perfectly round, and possessed no clear point of entry or exit, presently occupied only by him and the very uncomfortable chair he had been provided. He was all too familiar with it.
"Jeesh! What's with the lights? This an interrogation or an execution?" He called, rather less sarcastically than he intended.
"That depends very much on your cooperation," An answer came from nowhere in particular. He immediately recognised that voice. That distinctly self-assured brand of arrogance that came part-and-parcel with words like 'dignity' and 'justice'. The familiarity was almost enough to make him smile; instead, he frowned.
When one worked so frequently in such stark contrast, it was almost as good as working in the same line of business. They were like two sides of the same coin, really. Although strictly speaking, Gazimon wasn't nearly in the same denomination as his counterpart. He didn't like to think about that, though.
"Angey! Hey, I wouldn't be here if I wasn't planning to cooperate, right?" The Virus answered the Vaccine, as saccharine as could be.
"You were detained," The Angemon, no doubt monitoring him from a nearby chamber, and a much more comfortable chair, reminded him.
"Willingly," Gazimon said, already growing weary of this exchange, fidgeting in his seat. In truth, he simply knew better than to try and run from one of these Terminus City roundups. It'd been his fault for being caught so close to the surface, really... But then, it was impossible to know just when the long arm of the law would reach out. "What's this about, exactly, anyway?"
"You are not the one asking the questions here," Came the cool and even reply. "State your name and occupation."
"That's not a question," The rookie murmured, to a painfully long stretch of silence. Finally, he sighed, "Gazimon. I'm a mechanic, y'know, fixitall sort."
"Yet you do not maintain a lawful premise in Terminus City. Why is that?" Angemon asked from his invisible throne on-high. Here it was again. Gazimon figured he'd been asked this same question every time he'd been incarcerated... Which, was more times than he could count on his claws, by this point. He wondered if this really was on the actual list of questions, or if the agents of Terminus just liked to needle him.
"I don't, technically, live in the city. Just come up for house calls. You know how it is. Rents are high, folks floodin' in from the countryside what with the troubles these days, work place is saturated... Space between the walls is at a huge premium," Gazimon rambles off the usual spiel, trying to tilt the chair back, only to find it's firmly grafted to the floor. These upper city knuckle-draggers thought of everything. He amends, some bitterness creeping into his voice, "Maybe you don't know how it is." No way Angemon knew, hatched with a silver holy idol up his...
"So you're a vagrant?" The interrogator cuts, cold, clinical, and before a proper retort can be mustered, the followup, the hook, "Where were you, two turns ago, 0200?"
"Eh? Well, lessee..." The small, grey-furred creature answered instinctively, biding for a bit of time. Of course, he knew where he'd been. Among the handful of recent not-strictly-legal activities Gazimon had been explicitly involved in in the last few days, there was only one he could recount that would garner this sort of interest. "Was runnin' my normal rounds in the night-city. Think I was tinkerin' with someone's time-keeper was on the fritz. Yeah, yeah... Gabumon? Or was it Gaburimon? Either way, thing was running backwards. Turns out it was a disconnected timer, like for a detonator. Where he got it, I dunno." The rookie lied at length, a little more seasoned in this regard at least.
"Working? At 0200?" Angemon asked dubiously.
"Pretty normal business hours for Tenebrous."
"Is that also a normal hour for a stroll? Witnesses place you near Channel 3 at around that hour," The disembodied voice of the law pressed. Gazimon could feel his code running cold. His initial instinct had proven right, just it always did... Or, at the very least, just like he always liked to tell people it did.
Gazimon hoped his sudden anxiety didn't show on his face. His ears lowered slightly, but it was unlikely that his monitor would pick up on that... Right? He didn't let his mind pursue that thought, instead focusing on the much more tangible and threatening question that had been posed. "Channel 3... Lessee... That does ring a bell..."
"So you were there?" It's subtle, but Gazimon can hear the edge of tension in Angemon's voice. Some kind of agitation? Or pleased to pick up a lead?
Channel 3 was definitely familiar. A narrow trench that pressed up against the outer edge of one of Terminus City's many bleak bulwarks, what had been perhaps been intended to bring a stretch of free-flowing water into the walls had been abandoned for unknown reasons, leaving instead a stagnant layer of water and detritus at it's murky bottom. Rather than simply fill it in, whatever council or bureau (or similar fancy word for a group of idiots) had left it, perhaps figuring it worked for a moat for this particular stretch of ugly, oppressive wall. Following this same thought, two bridges spanned it, each utilizing a simple mechanism capable of raising or lowering it against invaders... Or, as it actually happened, to control traffic.
A handful of abandoned and incomplete tunnels opened into the channel. At some point, some enterprising underworlders had completed a few of them to their own ends, linking them into the irresponsible, winding network of tunnels that fed in to the City of Night, the siphoning tendrils through which the parasitic undercity fed from the megalopolis above. Through one of these, a small group had filtered out into the poorly lit channel just ahead of a discrete caravan of transports bound for the inner city...
"I didn't say that!" Gazimon fervently denied. "I already told you, I was workin' at the time!" He had been working on the time. Working on the bridge mechanism, so that it rose half way through the convoy's passage, and broke down. Meanwhile, a few others bugged some of the local lights, casting the thing into shadows. It was to be some simple slight of hand, while the escort tried to figure out the glitch--these things happened in the city, after all--the rest of the gang would quietly slip in, sniff around the caravan, and lift anything they could. "I just heard about what happened, that's all."
"That incident is not public knowledge!" That voice countered with all the conviction of an avenging angel. Before he could continue, Gazimon tripped him up.
"Maybe not up above! But down below, heh, everyone's heard about the news from Channel 3," He covered his misdirection with the truth. Any other digimon unfortunate enough to be caught out by the Terminus mooks would be quick to confirm it. He rolled on, "Blackout, and splash! Some kitted out mover nosedives off the bridge. Commotion draws the usual opportunists out the tunnels, and a dozen Numemon besides. Chaos descends and next thing ya know, everything of worth's been hauled off down the drip, right?" There was a pregnant pause that told Gazimon his hidden judge was mulling it over. Gazimon tried not to be feel satisfied, yet.
"That does not account for the testimony placing you at the scene."
Gazimon wondered just who had ratted him out. Hadn't he been plenty subtle? While he'd been summarily shouldered out of getting hold of any actual cargo of value, he had clandestinely stripped some of the parts from the mostly intact vehicle when he had figured all eyes were elsewhere during the chaos. Then there was the fee the ringleader of the night's joviality had promised for his particular part in their gang's diversion...
"That could'a been any Gazimon, Angey. Jeesh, was probably Gizamon. I get mixed up with that guy all the time," He offered an easy alternative, crossing his arms and sounding appropriately grumpy at the conceived mistake. "Ain't it your job to get the facts straight before you start throwing claims like that around?"
"Do not trifle with the law and it's keepers, Gazimon," That honest and full-of-itself voice warned him sincerely. The digimon in question swallowed, swearing he could feel the light growing hotter and more intense above him.
"H-Hey, I'm sorry, alright? I didn't mean nothin' by it, not really. Just feelin' wrenched I got dragged in on some unsubstantiated call-out when I could be out makin' a bit or two," He dropped his head, just short of groveling. As an afterthought, he added, "It's a waste of your time too, and the law's besides. Guess we all lost on this one."
There is another thoughtful stretch of silence, giving the Gazimon some time to stew on his own thoughts and worries. When the justice keeping digimon finally speaks again, though, it is calmer, once again cooler, "Perhaps. Perhaps not."
"Eh?" Gazimon looks up from his toes, as if he could actually see the individual he was having a conversation with.
"There was a particular article of interest that went missing that night. A small security case. In your time in... the undercity, did you hear any news of such an object circulating?"
More than any of the jabs or hooks inequitably received from the angel through the course of the night thus far, this sent his mind reeling. Old Angey was asking way too nicely for his liking. Of course, he had seen the box. A small case, maybe the length of his forearm, gunmetal grey and marked only with an unfamiliar sigil. He'd tried his hand at opening it... Perhaps the better part of the midnight market's various tamperers, exploiters, security experts, and demolitionists had, each as unsuccessful as the last, or so the rumour went.
"No," He lied on instinct. "Seen some of the stuff swiped being hawked, but nothin' like that. Sounds kinda boring, all things told..." It was anything but. Just what was in that unassuming little box that required that much protection? Rumours had already begun to circulate, of course. For Gazimon, though, he found it eerie, and tried to avoid thinking about it.
"... Very well," Angemon answered, sounding... Perhaps disappointed? Again the mammal digimon was surprised as he carried on with candor, "If you do happen across any news, a small reward is currently being offered on any substantial evidence as to it's whereabouts. Furthermore, recovery of the case in tact... Could bring a more substantial reward. Perhaps enough to set up a substantial premise in the inner city business district..."
The Angemon's warm, near-paternal tone sent Gazimon's fur crawling. Inner city was at a premium's premium, the hottest property. This sort of temptation was usually reserved for demon digimon, not angels... Though, as far as Gazimon could tell, the main difference between them was usually how white they dyed their wings.
"Whoa whoa, ehe, well, I'll definitely be keepin' an ear out if there's somethin' in it for me," He assured the enforcer, more genuinely than he intended. His mind was already racing with those dangerous possibilities, and he only hoped he could convince himself out of doing something stupid before he got back to Tenebrous. "... That mean I'm free to go, then?"
"You will be detained additionally while the report is processed. If everything is in order, you will be free to go."
"Sure, Angey, sure," Gazimon grumbled, settling into his tortuously uncomfortable chair. More than the bright light, the uncannily sterile room, or his interrogator's grating, self-righteous voice, it was now the flitting, buzzing, and infernally unceasing traffic in his own head that would serve as his tormentor in the onset of the silence in the room. Without an external enemy to try to outmaneuver and outwit, all he had left were those more terrible wolves, always biting at his tail: Greed, Fantasy, and Ambition.
Words: 2,107
And For Our First Question...
MPC Number:
63B
Reward Requested: Bits, please!
Cold, sterile light suddenly shone from above, glaring in Gazimon's ill-adjusted eyes like so many judgmental suns. His pupils contracted near-instantly, sending a sea of miniature stars swimming behind his eyes, and leaving him blind and disoriented for what felt like an easy eternity. A nocturnal creature--if by habit, and not physiology--the mammal digimon more likely took several minutes to adjust to the vicious change in luminosity, and even after he had, it left him with a mild headache. The room he found himself in didn't help. As cold and clean as the light attempting to purify the dark corners of his core, it was perfectly round, and possessed no clear point of entry or exit, presently occupied only by him and the very uncomfortable chair he had been provided. He was all too familiar with it.
"Jeesh! What's with the lights? This an interrogation or an execution?" He called, rather less sarcastically than he intended.
"That depends very much on your cooperation," An answer came from nowhere in particular. He immediately recognised that voice. That distinctly self-assured brand of arrogance that came part-and-parcel with words like 'dignity' and 'justice'. The familiarity was almost enough to make him smile; instead, he frowned.
When one worked so frequently in such stark contrast, it was almost as good as working in the same line of business. They were like two sides of the same coin, really. Although strictly speaking, Gazimon wasn't nearly in the same denomination as his counterpart. He didn't like to think about that, though.
"Angey! Hey, I wouldn't be here if I wasn't planning to cooperate, right?" The Virus answered the Vaccine, as saccharine as could be.
"You were detained," The Angemon, no doubt monitoring him from a nearby chamber, and a much more comfortable chair, reminded him.
"Willingly," Gazimon said, already growing weary of this exchange, fidgeting in his seat. In truth, he simply knew better than to try and run from one of these Terminus City roundups. It'd been his fault for being caught so close to the surface, really... But then, it was impossible to know just when the long arm of the law would reach out. "What's this about, exactly, anyway?"
"You are not the one asking the questions here," Came the cool and even reply. "State your name and occupation."
"That's not a question," The rookie murmured, to a painfully long stretch of silence. Finally, he sighed, "Gazimon. I'm a mechanic, y'know, fixitall sort."
"Yet you do not maintain a lawful premise in Terminus City. Why is that?" Angemon asked from his invisible throne on-high. Here it was again. Gazimon figured he'd been asked this same question every time he'd been incarcerated... Which, was more times than he could count on his claws, by this point. He wondered if this really was on the actual list of questions, or if the agents of Terminus just liked to needle him.
"I don't, technically, live in the city. Just come up for house calls. You know how it is. Rents are high, folks floodin' in from the countryside what with the troubles these days, work place is saturated... Space between the walls is at a huge premium," Gazimon rambles off the usual spiel, trying to tilt the chair back, only to find it's firmly grafted to the floor. These upper city knuckle-draggers thought of everything. He amends, some bitterness creeping into his voice, "Maybe you don't know how it is." No way Angemon knew, hatched with a silver holy idol up his...
"So you're a vagrant?" The interrogator cuts, cold, clinical, and before a proper retort can be mustered, the followup, the hook, "Where were you, two turns ago, 0200?"
"Eh? Well, lessee..." The small, grey-furred creature answered instinctively, biding for a bit of time. Of course, he knew where he'd been. Among the handful of recent not-strictly-legal activities Gazimon had been explicitly involved in in the last few days, there was only one he could recount that would garner this sort of interest. "Was runnin' my normal rounds in the night-city. Think I was tinkerin' with someone's time-keeper was on the fritz. Yeah, yeah... Gabumon? Or was it Gaburimon? Either way, thing was running backwards. Turns out it was a disconnected timer, like for a detonator. Where he got it, I dunno." The rookie lied at length, a little more seasoned in this regard at least.
"Working? At 0200?" Angemon asked dubiously.
"Pretty normal business hours for Tenebrous."
"Is that also a normal hour for a stroll? Witnesses place you near Channel 3 at around that hour," The disembodied voice of the law pressed. Gazimon could feel his code running cold. His initial instinct had proven right, just it always did... Or, at the very least, just like he always liked to tell people it did.
Gazimon hoped his sudden anxiety didn't show on his face. His ears lowered slightly, but it was unlikely that his monitor would pick up on that... Right? He didn't let his mind pursue that thought, instead focusing on the much more tangible and threatening question that had been posed. "Channel 3... Lessee... That does ring a bell..."
"So you were there?" It's subtle, but Gazimon can hear the edge of tension in Angemon's voice. Some kind of agitation? Or pleased to pick up a lead?
Channel 3 was definitely familiar. A narrow trench that pressed up against the outer edge of one of Terminus City's many bleak bulwarks, what had been perhaps been intended to bring a stretch of free-flowing water into the walls had been abandoned for unknown reasons, leaving instead a stagnant layer of water and detritus at it's murky bottom. Rather than simply fill it in, whatever council or bureau (or similar fancy word for a group of idiots) had left it, perhaps figuring it worked for a moat for this particular stretch of ugly, oppressive wall. Following this same thought, two bridges spanned it, each utilizing a simple mechanism capable of raising or lowering it against invaders... Or, as it actually happened, to control traffic.
A handful of abandoned and incomplete tunnels opened into the channel. At some point, some enterprising underworlders had completed a few of them to their own ends, linking them into the irresponsible, winding network of tunnels that fed in to the City of Night, the siphoning tendrils through which the parasitic undercity fed from the megalopolis above. Through one of these, a small group had filtered out into the poorly lit channel just ahead of a discrete caravan of transports bound for the inner city...
"I didn't say that!" Gazimon fervently denied. "I already told you, I was workin' at the time!" He had been working on the time. Working on the bridge mechanism, so that it rose half way through the convoy's passage, and broke down. Meanwhile, a few others bugged some of the local lights, casting the thing into shadows. It was to be some simple slight of hand, while the escort tried to figure out the glitch--these things happened in the city, after all--the rest of the gang would quietly slip in, sniff around the caravan, and lift anything they could. "I just heard about what happened, that's all."
"That incident is not public knowledge!" That voice countered with all the conviction of an avenging angel. Before he could continue, Gazimon tripped him up.
"Maybe not up above! But down below, heh, everyone's heard about the news from Channel 3," He covered his misdirection with the truth. Any other digimon unfortunate enough to be caught out by the Terminus mooks would be quick to confirm it. He rolled on, "Blackout, and splash! Some kitted out mover nosedives off the bridge. Commotion draws the usual opportunists out the tunnels, and a dozen Numemon besides. Chaos descends and next thing ya know, everything of worth's been hauled off down the drip, right?" There was a pregnant pause that told Gazimon his hidden judge was mulling it over. Gazimon tried not to be feel satisfied, yet.
"That does not account for the testimony placing you at the scene."
Gazimon wondered just who had ratted him out. Hadn't he been plenty subtle? While he'd been summarily shouldered out of getting hold of any actual cargo of value, he had clandestinely stripped some of the parts from the mostly intact vehicle when he had figured all eyes were elsewhere during the chaos. Then there was the fee the ringleader of the night's joviality had promised for his particular part in their gang's diversion...
"That could'a been any Gazimon, Angey. Jeesh, was probably Gizamon. I get mixed up with that guy all the time," He offered an easy alternative, crossing his arms and sounding appropriately grumpy at the conceived mistake. "Ain't it your job to get the facts straight before you start throwing claims like that around?"
"Do not trifle with the law and it's keepers, Gazimon," That honest and full-of-itself voice warned him sincerely. The digimon in question swallowed, swearing he could feel the light growing hotter and more intense above him.
"H-Hey, I'm sorry, alright? I didn't mean nothin' by it, not really. Just feelin' wrenched I got dragged in on some unsubstantiated call-out when I could be out makin' a bit or two," He dropped his head, just short of groveling. As an afterthought, he added, "It's a waste of your time too, and the law's besides. Guess we all lost on this one."
There is another thoughtful stretch of silence, giving the Gazimon some time to stew on his own thoughts and worries. When the justice keeping digimon finally speaks again, though, it is calmer, once again cooler, "Perhaps. Perhaps not."
"Eh?" Gazimon looks up from his toes, as if he could actually see the individual he was having a conversation with.
"There was a particular article of interest that went missing that night. A small security case. In your time in... the undercity, did you hear any news of such an object circulating?"
More than any of the jabs or hooks inequitably received from the angel through the course of the night thus far, this sent his mind reeling. Old Angey was asking way too nicely for his liking. Of course, he had seen the box. A small case, maybe the length of his forearm, gunmetal grey and marked only with an unfamiliar sigil. He'd tried his hand at opening it... Perhaps the better part of the midnight market's various tamperers, exploiters, security experts, and demolitionists had, each as unsuccessful as the last, or so the rumour went.
"No," He lied on instinct. "Seen some of the stuff swiped being hawked, but nothin' like that. Sounds kinda boring, all things told..." It was anything but. Just what was in that unassuming little box that required that much protection? Rumours had already begun to circulate, of course. For Gazimon, though, he found it eerie, and tried to avoid thinking about it.
"... Very well," Angemon answered, sounding... Perhaps disappointed? Again the mammal digimon was surprised as he carried on with candor, "If you do happen across any news, a small reward is currently being offered on any substantial evidence as to it's whereabouts. Furthermore, recovery of the case in tact... Could bring a more substantial reward. Perhaps enough to set up a substantial premise in the inner city business district..."
The Angemon's warm, near-paternal tone sent Gazimon's fur crawling. Inner city was at a premium's premium, the hottest property. This sort of temptation was usually reserved for demon digimon, not angels... Though, as far as Gazimon could tell, the main difference between them was usually how white they dyed their wings.
"Whoa whoa, ehe, well, I'll definitely be keepin' an ear out if there's somethin' in it for me," He assured the enforcer, more genuinely than he intended. His mind was already racing with those dangerous possibilities, and he only hoped he could convince himself out of doing something stupid before he got back to Tenebrous. "... That mean I'm free to go, then?"
"You will be detained additionally while the report is processed. If everything is in order, you will be free to go."
"Sure, Angey, sure," Gazimon grumbled, settling into his tortuously uncomfortable chair. More than the bright light, the uncannily sterile room, or his interrogator's grating, self-righteous voice, it was now the flitting, buzzing, and infernally unceasing traffic in his own head that would serve as his tormentor in the onset of the silence in the room. Without an external enemy to try to outmaneuver and outwit, all he had left were those more terrible wolves, always biting at his tail: Greed, Fantasy, and Ambition.
Words: 2,107
