Futuristic — 𝖢𝖠𝖳 & 𝖬𝖮𝖴𝖲𝖤

[leviathan.]

cat

&

mouse

 

[leviathan.]

cat

New York Republic, 20XX, 60 years after the HK Event.

The streets of Old York were slick with acid rain and city sludge, and Tom’s soaked face tingled with a gentle fire as he navigated the way to the 56th precinct to drop off a recently closed case.

Deborah Williams. 68. Killed her husband in a passion-fueled misuse of her psychokinesis ability. Took him 47 minutes to get her to confess. Tom curled his lip as he pulled his jacket tighter against himself, its worn leather going taut, strides growing longer as a frisson of dull irritation shot through him, quick as lightning—could’ve broken her in 10, if it weren’t for Anderson’s incompetence. Who gives a suspect their phone call before the interrogation? Fucking hell.

Passerby around him flinched as he walked past and he could hear a couple of loud arguments start up behind him from the people around him, shouts and curses being flung around.

Whoops. Tom quickly smoothed his face out into an amiable smile and suppressed his brief flicker of anger into nothingness. He had to be more careful. He’d been slipping up more and more lately as his father’s court date grew nearer, as unanswered call after unanswered call piling up in his inbox, taunting him from the stark black and white of his mobile holoscreen.

It was weakness, and Tom was determined to crush it under heel like a used cigarette.

As he rounded the corner, the neon lights from the wide, scrolling billboards that spanned nearly every glass and chrome skyscraper in the city illuminated the police station in diluted reds, blues, and pinks. NYR's 56th police precinct was an old type of brick and mortar building, pre-Event, 10 stories tall and on its last legs. It was a miracle that it had even survived the riots, Tom mused as he jogged up the steps and pushed open the doors, a warm draft of air hitting him in the face. It probably wasn’t going to survive the next wave after the elections.

As he sauntered into the busy first floor, dodging the bustling interns underfoot and waving non-committal hellos to acquaintances with practiced ease, he maneuvered himself to the first office on the left—the desk of one Yvia Bryant, captain of the 56th. The woman didn’t look up as he entered, eyes focused on the holo-interface in front of her, fingers a blur flicking through the virtual bureaucracy that was the NYRPD intranet.

“Investigator Kane. What a surprise,” the chief said, not moving her eyes from her screens as he closed the door behind him. “I wouldn’t have expected you to brave the weather and come see me, Is this some sort of special occasion? A birthday, perhaps?”

“Close, but no cigar.” He placed a small USB drive on her desk, smirking. “The Williams homicide is closed thanks to yours truly.”

A pause.

“And no thanks to the fucking greenhorn you sent to supervise me. Gave her her rights and her phone call before I could get in the room. I swear, the crop this year is even stupider than the last.”

Bryant sucked in a breath through her teeth and finally met his gaze, bright blue eyes meeting his flat, dark ones.

“I admit, some of our recruits need to be trained out of their naïveté, but Anderson’s one of our best. A bright young man, top of his class back at the Academy.”

Her eyes narrow. Tom merely gave a bland smile back, playing innocent. Busted.

“Though not good enough to stop you from getting one over him, apparently.”

An unfair accusation, at the least. Tom had just offered to let the fresh-faced young officer talk to the suspect first. A mere formality. Anderson didn’t have to take Tom’s bait.

Anyway, how could Tom have foreseen that he would actually take pity on the old woman and completely fuck up the investigation? Honestly, he had set the idiot up to fail, but not to fail that spectacularly.

Amateurs.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Captain.”

She sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose before picking up his drive and plugging it into a port.

“I don’t know what you attempt to achieve from this, Kane. Your main handler is on leave for two more weeks, so hold off on fucking with any more of her substitutes until she gets back, hm?”

“You got it chief. No funny business here.” Tom lied cheerfully.

It must’ve shown on his face, because Bryant only sighed and dropped the subject, returning once more to her work.

“Somehow, I don’t believe you. Anyway, it’ll take a few days to process this case, so rest easy for a couple and come back on Friday. Now get the hell out of my office.”

“Yes ma’am!” He chirped, knocking on the frame of the door thrice before beating feet, out of her office and out of the building, bowling over about three interns along the way.

He took out his phone and checked the notifications as he took the maglev home, taking up a whole aisle laying down, ignoring glares from his fellow passengers as he scrolled through his inbox.

Well, that was most of the week cleared. They would have a hell of a time trying to find his replacement—his reputation had gotten around—so that would buy him two more days at the least. He hasn’t slept more than ten hours in the past few weeks investigating the case, and the vodka in his cabinet was calling his name. It was time to pass his free days in a haze of booze and sleep. A message pops up on his screen:

Hey. How are you holding up with my substitutes? Just got a blip from Captain Bryant. Play nice, ok? :) — AD

And some tail, apparently, if he played it right.

But alas, it simply wasn’t meant to be.

Another notification pops up with a soft ding accompanying it. It was from a redacted number, and there was only one client he had that possessed the resources and paranoia to even acquire one.

The York Hounds Unit.

New assignment. We need your resources to track down a missing item of ours. And the person who took it.

The next line made his eyebrows shoot up. Unconsciously, he sits up, eyes sharpening as he rereads it.

Lethal force is authorized for this investigation. Object is top priority, suspect less so. Dossier incoming. — E

Lethal force? Tom had participated on license-to-kill projects before, but usually, it involved a team, and he wasn't the one exerting it. This was new. And interesting.

As the maglev screeched to a stop at his station, Tom stepped out, head in the clouds as he mulled over what his contact had sent him, heading for his apartment in Westville.

He wouldn’t see the message sent right after the first until he was back at home, his phone having been tucked into his pocket and set to silent when he got off.

File sent: “Jerome Denholm.tif”.

name. thomas kane
role. the cat
player. leviathan.
location. 56th Precinct his apartment
outfit. here
mood. "now, now, what do we have here?"
interactions. receiving assignment
tags. natasha.

& mouse.

 

[natasha.]

jerry denholm

the career criminal

What a fucking waste of time.

After coming into the semi-permanent employ of the Ianucci crime family, Jerry took on fewer and fewer freelancing gigs. He had reached a point in his career where he could easily afford to be picky about who he wanted to work with and which assignments he wanted to take up, and truthfully, with how much he made working for Leo Ianucci, Jerry didn't even need to take on anything else. The only reason he did so was because he didn't enjoy putting all his eggs in one basket, and a new challenge every now and then was exciting.

Jerry had always been good at picking out the more fun cases from a range of potential clients that reached out to him, but he'd never been stiffed before. Given his reputation, Jerry was honestly more surprised than upset that it had happened. Of course, the surprise soon dissolved and was replaced by anger and only mild homicidal thoughts.

The task had been an interesting one. Difficult, but not the toughest job Jerry had ever pulled off. A little bit of smooth talking here, a little blood spilled there and Jerry had managed to locate the item his client had hired him for. He always worked better when he could do the research on his own instead of relying on things his clients gave him since they were only about 50% reliable. It took a little longer with Jerry working on intel himself, but in two days, he'd formed a plan, cased the joint, and set things in motion.

It was an impressive feat, or at least Jerry thought so. He spent years figuring out what he was and wasn't capable of as far as his powers were concerned, and he still had a lot more to discover, but recently, he realised that he could do virtually anything with a safety pin. Guns? Pfft. The larger the weapon, the more it was obviously compensating for. With a little skill, a person could be capable of anything, and Jerry knew a thing or two about his own skills.

In any case, after finally breaking through all the defences — and there had been quite a few for a lonesome Jerry — he had been able to slip in, grab the package, and slip out before any alarms had sounded. Of course, once Jerry was well on his way, he was met with speeding cop cars heading in the direction he'd come from. Those blaring sirens were music to his ears and Jerry could only smile to himself as he continued on his way, blending into the crowd and catching the subway to his block.

It was only once he was inside his apartment that he bothered to contact his client. Jerry had never really been the type to be curious about what he was stealing unless it was important for the plan. The less he knew about it, the better, in case authorities got involved. This time was a little different though, because every and any attempt to reach out to his client after the job had been finished was met with either a busy tone or no answer. Jerry wasn't a very patient person to begin with, and since pick-ups usually happened within an hour of him retrieving whatever had been asked of him, Jerry came to the conclusion that he was not getting paid in full for this particular job.

That was when he decided to take a look at the item he went through all that trouble to find. What Jerry got his hands on was a metal box with what looked like a very complicated cryptex that served as a lock. Jerry almost scoffed at how easy it seemed to open, and he didn't even need to touch the cryptex. All that was needed was a little concentration and force and the thing popped open, ruining the locking mechanism and revealing a velvet surface inside. Carefully laid out on top of it, was a string of... pearls?

Jerry got stiffed for pearls. He didn't even know anyone who enjoyed wearing pearls. What the hell was so important about these pearls that had it locked up inside a fortress? Maybe they belonged to some countess from centuries ago. Jerry didn't know and he didn't care. It was obviously priceless so he could probably see about finding a buyer for it later, to make up for the money he didn't get from his client — whom he'd of course track down first, before he got around to doing anything about the pearls.

For now though, Jerry just tossed the necklace across his couch and pulled out the cigarette that had been hiding behind his ear. Placing it to his lips, Jerry dug around in his back pocket for his lighter while shaking his head and moving to his balcony. "What a waste of fucking time."

his apartment

annoyed

here

leviathan.