Impulse Control

"With those angry eyes! Well I bet you wish you could cut me down with tho-se angry eyes!"

Dawson breathed laughter. Was this Candles' doing? The volume of the music mounted up and through her thermal scanning she could see the figures beginning to fidget. They couldn't hear each other over the music and they'd lost their ability to coordinate.

She broke from cover as the next stanza started, aiming the Accelerator at the nearest hidden corp-sec operative and firing. The slug passed through five different cubicle walls and struck the person in the shoulder, knocking them into the following wall.

"You want to believe that I am not the same as you! And now I can't conceive, oh Lord of what it is you're trying to do!"

"With those angry ey-es! Well I bet you wish you could cut me down with those angry eyes..."

Proceeding into the room, Dawson ducked down low and felt the vibrating force of a slug passing by her head on the left as she dove into a cubicle. She aimed at the figure who had tried her and shot them in the left thigh, knocking their feet out from under them.

"What a shot you could be if you could shoot at me with those angry ey-es!"

A figure rushed out of their cover and into the hallway, holding the rifle forward and moving to the open space in front of the cubicle Dawson was in. She positioned the gun in that opening and pulled the trigger; the corp-sec practically walked into the rod and was sent flying backwards into the opposite side of the walkway, collapsing on an ancient desk manufactured sometime in the 2020s.

With that shot her cylinder was empty and changing it would take too long, so Dawson stowed the gun on her hip and got to one knee, keeping low and beginning to charge through the cubicle walls towards the fourth operative. Despite the dark and the booming music the up-ending barriers gave her away and her figure was able to guess her trajectory. Their aim however left a lot to be desired: a.50 round hit the floor right beside her right foot and probably traveled through it all the way to the lobby below, but it left him with an empty chamber as Dawson plowed into his midsection and planted his back to a support pillar. Electrical conduits burst apart in a shower of sparks as Dawson socked him full-force in the stomach and then across the face. He slumped bonelessly to ground a moment later.

Movement on her right alerted Dawson that the fifth corp-sec operative--by far the biggest of the bunch--was lining up a shot. She ducked behind the pillar with only a fraction of a second to spare before the round moved through the space her head had occupied before. She charged around the column with all the power and speed she could summon, picking up an ancient flat-screen monitor on the way and hurling it at the shooter, who she could tell now as a troll with a cybernetic left arm.

He had to drop his gun to block the monitor Dawson threw his way lest it hit his face and then she was on him, pounding her armored fists into the seemingly insensitive prosthetic. He kicked at her but she blocked it with his knees and swung at his face, striking a pair of night-optics off his eyes and plunging him into the dark.

Stumbling backward the troll swiped at Dawson with his metal extremity and she dipped backwards to avoid it, swinging her left fist up to crack him across the jaw. Collapsing onto a desk, the troll pulled out a light pistol from his belt and aimed it in her direction, pulling the trigger without discipline and only striking her armor three times. All the while the music poured out of the thumping speakers.

"You try to defend that you are not the one to blame! But I'm findin' it hard, my friend, when I'm in the deadly aim... Of those angry eyes!"

"Well I bet you wish you could cut me down with those angry ey-es! What a shot you would be if you could shoot at me with those angry ey-es!!"

Dawson grabbed his hand with the gun and squeezed until the bones in his fingers cracked, forcing him to drop the gun as he grit his teeth. His metal arm came back around to try to grab at her head but she caught it in her opposite grip and forced it up, up, until the alloy squealed, wrenched and sparked. The troll cried out in agony as Dawson ripped the arm off and threw it across the room into another cubicle.

She seized him by the throat in her left hand and hooked her right fist into his stomach, lifting him up onto her back and spinning him around to build up speed.

"You and I must start to realize... Blindness binds us together in a false disguise!"

With a shout of the sort she'd thrilled at loosing in her youth, Dawson tossed the troll's limp weight back across the walkway where he crashed against the pillar and slid to the ground. His cybernetic joint continued to spark, sending signals to a limb no longer attached.

"Can you see me through those angry ey--es...?"

Rolling her shoulders and breathing heavily, Dawson stepped back into the walkway and proceeded down to the small but well-lit office beyond the sea of cubicles. There was no door in the frame, allowing her to see Julius Megiddo seated at the modest desk, hands out of sight.

At a tap from her fingers her helmet plates came apart, revealing her sweat-soaked face and hair. The moment she did, Julius lifted a Walther palm pistol in his right hand from below the desk and fired both barrels at her. Dawson ducked down behind her neck-shield just in time, deflecting both.45 rounds off the hardened steel barrier.

When she stood back up straight, Megiddo had on his face a look of nervousness bordering on embarrassment.

"Well," he said, dropping the palm pistol on the desk, "You can't blame a man for trying, now can you?"

"On the contrary, Mister Megiddo, I can blame a man for anything I think I can prove he's guilty of."

She walked in further towards the room and noticed the wind on her face and saw the steel rod embedded in the ceiling. Had Megiddo been looking at the parking lot when she fired outside? It was possible she'd almost hit him with that first shot. How fateful that would have been.

"I cracked the thumb drive, Mister Megiddo. I can prove a lot in connection with you."

Ever the self-satisfied suit, Julius smoothed his silver hair and offered an indulgent smile. "The only thing you can prove, Detective, is your own active imagination. You have nothing to link me to any recent events save the questionable testimony of street thugs and career criminals."

"You might be right Mister Megiddo," Dawson admitted, "But not everyone requires the same level of evidence that I do to justify their actions."

The sounds of heavy footfalls behind her preceded Candles walking into the office, flamethrower's barrel flickering. What confidence remained in Megiddo's posture slowly faded from view as he began to visibly perspire.

"Did you know her?" Candles asked over his speaker. "Did you know my sister?" He took a few steps forward, looming over the desk and the seated elf behind it.

"Did you ever see her face? Or was she just a number to you, an employee without a name or a life?"

Megiddo licked his lips and swallowed, saying nothing, aware that it could incriminate him.

"Answer me! I want to know if you knew who she was before you had her killed!"

He leveled the barrel at Julius and stroked the trigger with one finger. The elf sat up straight in his seat and looked back at Dawson.

"Detective, please control your associate. I have no idea what he's..."

Dawson shook her head. "I don't even know who this man is, Mister Megiddo. I have no idea why he might want to kill you, and certainly no evidence of any crimes you might be connected to. In fact I think I'll be going now, a Lone Star unit is on the way and I'd rather not be bogged down in paperwork all night."

She turned and began to walk for the door when Julius called after her. "Stop! Stop. I'll cooperate, is that what you want? I'll talk. Call off this ork dog of yours and you'll have my compliance."

Slowly she faced him again, still acting the ignorant law enforcer. "Compliance in what regard, Mister Megiddo? As you so wisely pointed out, I have no evidence of anything save my active imagination."

Candles tested his flamethrower by pointing it out of the shattered window and pulling the trigger. A stream of burning liquid emerged and scattered across the parking lot below, seconds before several Lone Star patrol cars pulled in. He then pointed it back at Julius, heat haze rising from the tip. The elf pushed himself back away from the desk to escape it.

"Project glimpse! I'll talk, I'll talk! Arrest me, for fuck's sake!"

"Well," Dawson said, "If you insist, Mister Megiddo. Out of the way, Mister Macguire."

For a moment Candles didn't move. She had to speak again.

"Mister Macguire?"

"I'm thinkin' about it," he said. His hand caressed the trigger of the flamethrower in a manner almost romantic.

"Detective!" Julius shrieked.

"Remember what we talked about," Dawson reminded him. "There's a better way than the weapon in your hands."

"I don't know if that's true," Candles said over his speaker. Then he stood up and faced away. "But I'll let you try it your way. Could always try mine later, right?"

Dawson unhooked the cuffs from her waist and threw them on the table at Megiddo. "Time to accessorize, Mister Megiddo. You'll want to look good where you're going."

= = =

Twenty-five minutes later, Dawson met with Sergeant Sokoth in the parking lot, who had come as soon as he had learned Dawson had called for support.

"Look at you, dressed up like the angel of death," the ork chuckled. "If I didn't know any better I'd say you knew there was going to be trouble."

"I'm too old for trouble," Dawson told him. Behind Sokoth, Brandt stifled a chuckle.

"Megiddo is on his way to the precinct," Sokoth informed her, "And I'm going to be right behind him. He says he'll cooperate but I could use any evidence you might have."

She produced the thumb driver from a compartment on her hip and offered it to Sokoth. He took it and asked, "What's on this?"

"A new kind of crystal ball," she summarized. "One you fill with blood and polish with orichalcum. Rub it the right way and you could probably get stock prices from next year."

Sokoth looked aghast. "For fuck's sake, that's... No wonder there's been so much pressure to make this go away."

"Now you can make it go away," she said, "And stay away. Megiddo might talk, but he won't live long after he does. That's how these things usually go."

"He'll live long enough to make it into a jail cell," Sokoth swore. He looked over the office building Dawson had fought through to get to him and asked, "Was it tough?"

"Tougher than I remember, but then I was younger when I did this sort of thing. Think I'll take a break, Sergeant."

"A break?" Sokoth said, turning back to facing her. "How long?"

"Until further notice," Dawson said. "And before you ask who you're going to palm all the investigations off on without me around, he's standing right behind you."

Sokoth spun around to look at Brandt, who smiled and shrugged. Dawson walked back towards the Firebird.

Candles was sitting in the bus stop again, flamethrower off and pointed up at the sky. He spoke when Dawson came close, without turning to look at her.

"I think she'd be proud I did it your way," he said through his speaker. "The right way. Might be the only right thing I've done since I was twelve years old."

"Never too late to take up a good cause," Dawson told him.

"Good causes don't tend to pay good," Candles lamented, standing up. He offered his right hand to Dawson and she shook it briefly.

"You sure you don't want to fuck?" Candles asked.

"I'm not sure I want what I'm getting now," Dawson said. "But I'll keep you in mind."

"Hey," Candles said as she made for the Firebird, "You ever been with an ork before? You don't know what you're missin'!"

"I'm sure I have," she told him, "Though to be fair people tend to run together after you fuck enough of them. Men and women both."

"God damn you are hot," Candles told her. "And you can be sure I know what I'm talkin' about when I say that."

"And you've got good taste in music," she said back to him while sitting in the driver's seat. "See you around, Candles."

= = =

Alenia was standing at the door when Dawson opened it, looking up at her with those melon-green eyes.

"What happened?" she asked before the door even shut behind her.

"We got the bad guys," Dawson said to her. "It's as over as it's going to get. Or at least it's out of my hands, which I find is good enough for me today."

She stepped past the elf who scurried after, walking into the living room area. The apartment was, as the night before, a mess. The other elves perked up at her appearance, pulling off their visors or discarding the food items they'd been chewing on to look at her.

"Alenia is safe now so she can leave, but I know none of you are going to do that so just come help me take this armor off. Come on, I'm tired."

Rierra, Nyana, Shelara, Jastira and Alenia went to work dressing Dawson down to just the shorts and sleeveless shirt she'd worn underneath. The pieces went back on the rack in the hidden closet, her gun into the safe and her body onto the couch with an enormous sigh.

"Alright," Dawson said, "Whose hands are the least grubby?" The various street elves looked at their fingers, uncertain of how to measure this. "Never mind," Dawson said, forcing herself back up and going to her entertainment center.

"Tonight we are watching one of my favorite films. It's about a data courier who stores too much information in his head and has to get it out before the synaptic leakage kills him."

"Whaaat?" Alenia said incredulously. "That's not a thing! It's never been a thing!"

"Well they sure thought it would be back in 1995 when this was made."

As the movie played, Dawson let Nyana feed her things and let Rierra hold her drinking glass. Together they laughed at the antiquated terms and silly ideas the actors threw around.

"I can carry nearly eighty gigs of data in my head."

"Had a summer job breaking and entering."

"If I had wanted the silicon dug out of the back of my brain, I'd have gone to Mexico City!"

Towards the end of the movie Alenia's face made its way between Dawson's legs and she divided her time between looking at the screen and using Dawson's genitals as her pacifier. By the time the credits were rolling, the elves and their 'girlfriend' had forgotten all about the movie.

= = =

Within a week, Sokoth had been made Lieutenant. Brandt had made Detective. Candles had met someone new, but didn't give up trying to bang Dawson. Megiddo was put on the fast-track to a new life in a box courtesy of the corporate court who immediately entered collective arbitration against Aztechnology. It was the closest thing to justice anyone could have expected in the sixth world.

And Dawson had her hands full trying to herd her apartment elves, who had bottomless appetites of more than one kind. Every day they made a mess of her home, but at the next end-of-year corporate party that Gaines insisted she attend Dawson had a well-trained secret weapon to unleash on high society.