Chương 16: A long walk

"Yea, I'll send him over to Cpt. Halt down in public safety. She could always use another set of feet, and eyes to patrol the city at night. No one ever wants to be stuck patrolling this block of the city at night, as the most action you would ever get is some low life trying to score some illegal gene modification pills off of street dealer, or run across a lesser Neph ex. like an imp or mixed blood beast kind. But to be safe I will ask her to have an unmarked patrol vehicle come through the area every so often to ensure that he is safe. You know the Xo is going to rip Tarom a new one for eyeing his pet."

"I am more concerned about what Mr. Black Badge will do if one of the other recruits tries to make eyes at one of the two female beast kind that are in the new cycle's squad one with him, considering he made it sound like at least one of them is now his pet."

"I think he should make the unlucky guy join him for a day or two of accelerated training. It is not like the Xo could refuse his request if it came down to pulling rank. Oh, here he comes now, I will get him taken care of Sergeant. Have fun telling the Xo how it went."

As Zeph came out of interrogation room N, the security monitor officer stepped out of the observation room for interrogation room N, and waved to Zeph to get his attention.

"Ah good work there rookie, not sure that was exactly by the book, but I have never seen a suspect crack so fast before in the six years I have been with this division. I know you are probably going to start looking at me as if I am some harbinger of doom, but it seems like your first day of training is going to be less hitting the books, and more hitting the streets. Good thing is you won't have to go through the hell that is asking to draw a service weapon, but the bad news is that you are most likely going to be taking a long boring walk around the block until we can get someone from the midday shift to cover the staffing mistake."

"Sir, I don't understand, what are you talking about?"

"Captain Halt will fill you in on the details cadet. All I know is that the guy that was supposed to be here to patrol this city block until morning did not show up for duty, while you were in with the suspect. Basically it comes down to you are here, and he is not. As foot patrol around the block our HQ is seen by most of the night shift as super boring, the Captain would have a hell of a time calling one of the sunrise boys in to do it early. So even though your instructor is super pissed about it, the Xo went ahead and told the Captain to make use of you. I guess you could just call it hands-on training cadet. We better get going. The old cap'n can be a little harsh on those that are late. All because she is gunning for the Xo's chair, once he gets promoted to CO, or shipped off to another division."

Zeph was just glad that he could take the stairs for once, and be spared from the telepod for a change. Even though it was a short distance Zeph got to know a little bit about the officer that was showing him around. He was named Jason Si, and he was what they called a holding cell control officer. It was his job to keep an eye on all of the suspects that were brought in to the active station side of the HQ, once they had been officially charged. Just as Jason went to grab the handle of the on-duty captain's office, the door opened, leaving him face to face with Captain Halt.

"Took your sweet ass time getting here CCO Si. It must be that tiny bit of sloth DNA that you got from your father. Go back to watching girls with three tits try to talk their way out of getting busted for using Mod, before you rub your bad habits off on Cadet Demonbane."

"Ye- Yes, Ma, err Sir."

"That's right corporal you better call be sir, even though I am a woman, I am still a captain. Maybe if you were not so damn lazy you would have made lieutenant by now."

Jason ran off as fast as he could back to his monitor filled control room, hoping that Sergeant Simmons knew what he was doing. He could only take comfort in the fact that the Xo had signed off on it. Had he known that Commissioner Vaughn only signed off on sending him out on patrol after Simmons let it slip Zeph had given Tarom a tip on how to improve his odds of getting a date with the Xo's new pet, he might have told Zeph that it was all just a test, well they were short handed, and he was really being sent out on patrol, but he would have been sent back to class with the others if the Xo was not looking to give him a slight punishment. Walking thirty miles would not kill Zeph, but only make him stronger was the logic that he used to not feel too bad about doing it.

"Ok, cadet I do not care for one second about that Black Badge on your chest, or that it is your first day of training. The Xo says that I can use you to help make up for the rookie I got sent just yesterday calling out for something like going into labor, instead of popping out the brat and getting her ass in uniform. I hope you have good stamina kid, because I expect you to walk around the city block this building is in once every hour for the next ten hours. If you need to file a report, or drag some low life in to pay a visit to Si's happy little cubes that is fine. You can even hit up one of those always open stores to buy yourself something to drink. Hell the guy stuck with the graveyard shift might even be thankful to see a NEO take time to make sure that he was not being robbed by some Neph experiment gone wrong, or he might try to run. That would make for some excitement, but try not to shoot em unless you like filling out tons of paperwork. You can take a break at zero six hundred to shove a bite of food in your face in the dining hall on the academy floor. But don't forget to get back to patrol as fast as you can. Regardless of if you have any reportable public contacts, you will need to write up an end of shift report, and bring it to this office."

"Yes, sir."

"Don't yes sir me. Move your ass cadet, the block is not going to patrol itself. Grab a radio on your way out. It is what we use as a backup in case the net were to glitch out. It is also much faster to use it to call in back-up should you need it, but if you even make a single arrest all night, I will take your entire squad out for lunch at Tom's. Don't count on a free lunch cadet. I expect you to have a long dull walk."

Zeph found the radio he was to use sitting in a charger on the wall of the patrol coordination room. There were also black vests hanging nearby that reminded him of the bulletproof vests that he had seen on members of the LAPD back on Earth, but he was told that he would not need one of those by an officer sitting in the middle of a donut-shaped desk. The officer also told him that he would be the voice on the other end of the radio, and that if he had any problems to not hesitate to request back-up, nobody was expecting a day one recruit to take down a Mod pusher, or bust an unlicensed prostitute on their own. The radio looked just like the ones he used to talk to his coworkers back on earth, but with more buttons and a clip-on mic. Zeph had found the user manual on the HQ's database, and was sure that he would have no issues using it by the time he took the first step of his patrol outside of the building.

Zeph was just glad the city, or at least this part of it was well lit, even at such a late hour, making it so that he did not have to use a flashlight. Thanks to the lady at the front desk in the lobby, Zeph even had an extra-large cup of coffee to sip on as he made his way around the block. He felt it would all be worth it if he gained a point or two of stamina, or meet the requirements for the bonus task of beating the expectations of his instructors. Although the massive free cup of coffee was a nice surprise. As he only had to walk at a slow steady pace to make it around the three miles of the block, Zeph took his time, taking in the sights of the this part of the city at night. But with most of the shops, restaurants, an businesses that had offices in this section of the city long closed for the night, there was little to see beyond the glowing sighs, and flashing ads playing on the billboards. He was on his second lap around the block before he every spotted another person, and it was just some college aged kid leaving one of the always open shops. Zeph was going to stop him to ask him why he was out as such an hour, but as he got close he could hear the guy mumbling to himself about how he had to pull close to a tipple shift on the night before a big test, just because his stupid coworker was four hours late coming in to work, so Zeph just kept walking.

But, on his third trip around the block, Zeph spotted the same guy walking out of a dark ally way with a small clear plastic bottle in his hand. The moment that he saw Zeph he ran back into the ally while yelling; "Run!"