Cody stared at the slim plastic device in his hand. He had found it in a small envelope tucked into the profile of his squad car's windshield wiper with “To: Lt. Chase” written on it. He should have taken more precautions in opening the package, but current events had briefly eroded his reasoning.
This was not what he anticipated finding inside.
The black fabricated card hosted an obvious chip to scan to a device and a logo he definitely would not have anticipated was indented in the area any bank card from times past would have resided.
“Vigilantes, Inc.”
They clearly left this for him. And did so in the moments he had stopped ever so briefly to grab a coffee before resuming the search for Charlie.
“Might as well get this over with…” he mumbled to himself.
He tapped the screen of the onboard computer for his vehicle and then held the card's chip to the screen. A blue-green loading bar appeared in the shape of a stylized eye, then a “V.Inc.” icon appeared next to his other apps. He tapped it and a new window opened that activated his hands-free communications, initiating a call. After a few rings, the line opened and an obviously distorted voice spoke.
“Good afternoon, Lieutenant.”
“What do you want?” Cody asked without hesitating.
“To help, just as we always have been trying to,” responded the voice.
“We may have leads on your missing sister.”
“How do you know about that?” demanded Cody.
“There isn't much that happens in this city that doesn't go unnoticed by our eyes,” the voice said.
“But if you must know, we caught on from the police scanners.”
Cody squeezed the steering wheel, his knuckles turning white.
“You know that what you do is illegal, right?” he asked.
“Lieutenant, we aren't getting in contact with you to argue semantics about what we do. Don't waste valuable time that can be spent getting closer to finding your sister.”
Cody exhaled.
“Fine… you're right…” he said.
“So what do you want in exchange?”
There was a brief pause, then the voice spoke again.
“A temporary truce,” they said.
“If we have to coordinate and meet up, we want to do so without any hostility on the part of the law enforcement.”
“I can't promise that,” Cody stated.
“I'm able to manage those under me, but I can't simply wave a wand and create an out for you.”
“You have enough influence,” said the voice.
“All we need is amnesty long enough to help you find Charlie.”
Cody looked down at his coffee and downed the remnants.
“I'll see what I can do…” he said.
There was another pause.
“You're a good man, Chase. One of the few people in this city we can trust. Call later tonight and we will coordinate a rendezvous.”
After that, the line went quiet and the app window closed out.
Cody sat, attempting to process the conversation he just had. He had the feeling they would approach the law eventually, even suspecting they would talk to him.
He knew he was going to need more backup for what was to come and resolved what he needed to do in his head. He tapped the voice command.
“Call Clark.”
A moment later his friend and fellow officer responded.
“What's up, boss?” she asked.
“Did you find your sister?”
“No, but this is relevant,” he replied.
“I need you to meet me at the station as soon as you can. We may have a new asset to evaluate.”
—-
Lance and Adam stood on a rooftop overlooking where they had told Cody to meet with them. They watched as a set of squad vehicles parked on the side of the street and their occupants hustled into nearby buildings while Lt. Chase and Clark entered the building they were designated to.
“Figures they couldn't follow simple instructions,” sighed Lance.
“But I suppose this was predictable.”
“Why aren't we on the same roof as they're supposed to be?” Adam questioned.
“Kind of hard to have a face-to-face from across a four lane street…”
“Because I didn't trust them to not bring friends…” Lance stated.
He detached a small box the size of his fist from his belt and held it out over the edge of the roof. The top of the box split and unfolded to a quartet of squared propeller sets, revealing it to be a drone.
“O.R.A.C.L.E., it's all yours,” he said.
“On it,” said the AI over their comms as the small drone whirled to life.
The small unit buzzed across the street and hovered over the rooftop, waiting for the officers to arrive. After a short wait Lt. Chase emerged, followed closely by Clark. They each had a hand on their holsters, not drawing their weapons but ready to do so.
“Are you here?” Lt. Chase called out.
“While your hesitation to trust us is understandable, we did ask for you to come alone,” Lance spoke through a speaker on the drone, his voice coming out slightly modified.
“And don't try to tell us that you did, we watched your officers enter the nearby buildings.”
Lt. Chase glanced up at the drone, then looked at Clark.
“We wanted to make sure the perimeter was secured,” he countered.
“Just in case…”
“Send them back to the street level or we're calling this off,” Lance commanded.
He could sense Adam tensing up behind him, but stayed focused on Lt. Chase and Clark, occasionally watching for the other officers to emerge. He made a palm down gesture to his side, attempting to ease his friend.
“We want to help, but we can't do so if you're breathing down our necks.”
Lt. Chase shook his head.
“Fine,” he acquiesced.
“All units, return to ground level.”
There was a hesitation, then a series of affirmatives sounded over their comm channel.
“Officer Clark stays with me,” he stated up at the drone.
“Acceptable,” Lance stated.
“We will be there as soon as your officers get to ground. We will be approaching from the west side.”
The vigilantes watched as the two rooftop officers quickly turned in the westward direction.
“We aren't on their west side…” Adam mumbled.
“They don't need to know that,” Lance said with a shrug.
He turned to Adam.
“Are you good?” he asked.
“I'll be ‘good’ when we find my sister,” Adam said dryly.
Lance assessed his friend.
“Why don't you hold here while I take care of this?” he suggested.
“No,” Adam said shortly.
“This is my brother we are dealing with.”
“And he is in cop mode, not brother mode,” Lance added.
“I'm concerned about your judgment in the matter given the situation. We can't afford to reveal ourselves, even to Cody.”
“Thank you for your diagnosis, Dr. Shepherd, but I believe my judgment is quite in the right place here,” Adam shot back.
“What if it was your sister?”
He paused, letting his words sink in.
“Would you accept me putting you on the bench?” he continued, not waiting for a reply.
“No? Then let's deal with this so we can go beat up some card-themed goons and rescue Charlie.”
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