Young Writers Society

December 20, 4135

11:00pm

Harry was told to wait in the car while Roth and Marrow went in to make their business transaction. It had been six months working for this company since she left Federation Intelligence, and she had spent all six months sitting in the car.

This was understandable. Who would really want a young detective meddling in their business with the most powerful family in town? But as someone sleeping with the daughter of the most powerful Don in town, she knew she wouldn’t be waiting in the car much longer.

Anta Fiacre was getting impatient with the detective agency of Roth & Marrow. The good old boys weren’t delivering the shipments on time, they weren’t breaking enough kneecaps and they weren’t threatening enough little old ladies in checkered aprons. But worst of all, they were taking clients from too many other families.

In the town of Delta, on the planet Zinnia, there were districts and the families who controlled them. The planet was often compared to a central city of Old Earth, New York City. For its corruption, for its diversity, and for its ability to attract tourists.

Such a trio existed on only a few other planets but still Delta was still held as the most famous.

For someone who had spent their entire life being exposed to violence, it wasn’t too much of a stretch for Harry to find herself in this place.

Beside her, the radio crackled as the transmission from the wire came in and out. Roth & Marrow were classic detectives, insisting upon old technology, because paranoia had led them to a certain point. And everything must be recorded just in case the Italians would try to pull something.

All this procedure made her sigh, but the money was starting to make it worth her time.

“I went to the police, like a good Zinnian. These two boys were brought to trial…”

The monologue of the unknown subject started to trail off. The phrasing caught the young detective’s attention, as she twirled around in an office chair in the back of the van.

“I know that line. It’s from the Godfather.”

“Is that another one of your classic human movies?”

“Yes Willard, it is. And it means a very bad thing is about to happen.”

On the other side of covert operations vehicle, sat Willard Thankless, a curious little secretary. Every diamond crested gold button on her red and white outfit was perfectly straightened. Harry often joked that the girl must use a level and magnifying glass to get dressed every morning.

And now here was Miss Perfect, in her red and white suit, wearing the perfect colors for the situation they were about to deal with. Harry had been in enough pre-requisite situations to know that this could only end in bloodshed, but she had usually been there for Roth slicing open some skin or severing a limb.

They weren’t nice people but judging from the crowd that had accompanied them into the warehouse so far, death would not come as easily as an aging mobster might hope. The video camera slowly recorded and enhanced each surveillance shot. Among the listing of profile shots on the board, Anthony Vinconni stood out, a man with a passion for pinstripe suits.

No one knew too much about the Pinstripe Man, outside of the fact he was clearly a mob connected serial killer. And that was a basic fact to know, in the long run of how these people behaved. Everyone else in the listing from that evening had rap sheets thicker than an Italia bible, but no database mentioned anything about Mr. Pinstripe.

Harry’s mind floated to more assumptions, ignoring the cries from the mild mannered secretary beside her or the screams blasting from the radio. It wasn’t until Willard grabbed her shoulders, that Harry was brought back to the reality of what was going on.

The picture flashed to the grisly scene taking place inside the warehouse and over the speakers, they heard the fateful words, “I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse.”

A moment later, the proposition was made.

And a minute after that, both senior partners refused the offer.

Willard moved her hand towards the transmitter, thinking of calling back the guards that were once with them. Marrow always insisted on guards being there in the first place but as soon as the partners went inside, he would always say that they were, “perfectly prepared.” Obviously, this time they weren’t.

But Harry moved towards a different item, the holster hanging from her belt. She took a small box of bullets from the drawer underneath the monitor, this time thanking her bosses for being old-fashioned. From the rack beside the door, she took a bullet and shock vest, and then her raincoat.

“What are you doing?”

As she opened the van door, Willard hissed, “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Well at the moment, I’m planning on saving the day.”

Harry walked slowly from the parking lot across the street to the warehouse, loading a few rounds into her gun as she went, thinking over the few thoughts she had strung together. There was no realistic universe where it could possibly be categorized as a plan. All she really had was a gun and no upper or lower body strength. Not the best combo for the self-described assassin.

As Harry leaned against the window, she heard a variety of things. All things that she had heard before but never mixed together in this context, even though the combination made sense. Music blared inside the warehouse, barely covering up the screams and slightly muffled gunshots.

Marrow was already slumped against his chair, blood surrounding him in a puddle but still slowly trickling from the wound. Roth’s face wasn’t much of a face anymore but he was still arguing with the Pinstripe Man.

“You’re gonna regret this private dick. You should have taken Don Fiacre’s offer.”

“I will never give in to assholes like you. It’s fine working as partners but we are not dogs that are willing to work under you. Partners don’t normally beat each other to death in a warehouse, they discuss beating other people in a small café somewhere.”

“Hmm. Well you’re not a partner anymore, are you?”

Pinstripe turned away from the door that Harry was slowly creeping in through, leaning over a table of metal instruments.

“I suspect that Miss Bivens is about to become our new partner. She is the successor listed in your will, along with Mr. Huff, is she not?”

Roth started to deny but was interrupted.

“You don’t need to put forth the effort of saying ‘no’, we’ve already accessed the necessary records. We had a very personal chat with your lawyer, who didn’t want to violate confidentiality at first. But we determined he was more attached to his hands, than he was to your business.”

Vinconni motioned for a guard.

“But then we still unfortunately had to liberate him of his head.”

The guards brought in a glass box with a velvet veil. One lifted it off to display the head of the company’s lawyer, Mr. Sim.

“The same fate awaits you unless you give your company over to me. And perhaps it awaits Ms. Bivens as well since she is patiently waiting in the doorway.”

“There’s no universe that exists where I would suffer death at your hands. There’s too many bullshit destinies awaiting me on faraway planets, to be killed by an idiot like you.”

The guards advancing behind her were quickly met with a bullet to the brain. She heard more of them advancing, double thinking and then regretting the first action, but her methods had already changed. Even if she had never officially been a Nerot soldier, it was what she had been bred for.

It was why she was valuable.

With each blow landed and bullet fired, Harry slipped further away from the reality of the situation, thinking over the careful details of her past life. She had been taught at so many different academies, that the secret to winning a fight, was to distract yourself from the fight. The idea hadn’t been appreciated by the army, they preferred soldiers over philosophers. But maybe there was a reason that Tanis had won the war instead of their counterparts.

The noise on the outside had stopped and now there was a single voice speaking to her, saying the careful words that she never thought she would hear here.

“Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.”

The voice speaking was almost angelic, and Harry mildly laughed at the innuendo in the statement. None of this was the time or appropriate place, so even though the voice in her mind told her that it was a sin to laugh at a series of sacred words, it wasn’t like this was a church or anything. This was a warehouse with a blood-stained floor and a psychopath was running at her with an axe.

“If you think I can’t fight you, then you might want to ask my former employers.”

“Mr. Roth or Mr. Marrow.”

“The United Federation Army. You might be familiar with the Tanis unit, where you slaughtered a few nuns and caused some disruptions over a massacre of villagers.”

Harry slid another bullet into her gun and walked around the now silent ax wielder.

“I could always kill you now or I could turn you over to the government, who I assume would be very interested in your war crimes. Or we could always negotiate a third option, where I am the full partner, the loyal partner, that the two gentlemen on the floor tried to be.”

Vinconni lifted his hand to shake hers.

“It’s a pleasure to make your formal acquaintance, Miss Bivens.”