Chapter 2
With his free hand, Ceun Hawke pushed open the glass door marked Morphean Police and negotiated his way through the busy reception. He was currently dragging a tentacle behind him at the other end. A creature was changing shape in a desperate attempt to find one that would be the means for its escape. Ceun dinged the bell. A round face appeared from behind a mountain of paper.
‘Just a second Hawke!’ The head disappeared. Ceun now had hold of a talon just as its partner was bearing down upon his neck. He caught the other claw easily and tied the creature’s appendages together. The face reappeared followed by an equally ball-shaped body.
‘Sorry about that.’ The desk Sergeant said, giving the bounty hunter his full attention. Out of all the freelancers on the books, Hawke always intrigued him. Most of them were great muscular lumps with a mental capacity that limited itself to hunt, catch and deposit, sometimes even alive. Hawke didn’t fall into that category. He wasn’t excessively tall; in fact, some people might also be inclined to say he was quite short for his profession. They generally didn’t say so twice. As far as apparent physical strength was concerned, he was wiry rather than the battering ram norm. Scorning the leather of his peers, he was always smartly dressed in an almost black suit and t-shirt, wearing his dark, shoulder-length, curly hair tied at the base of his neck. With a normally cheerful disposition, the Sergeant often wondered why someone so clearly educated would want to deal with the dregs of society. For whatever reason, Hawke was at the top of his profession a legend almost. If a criminal knew Hawke was on his tail chances were, he would turn himself in rather than go to the trouble of trying to escape. Of course, not all of them were that bright.
‘Doughnut?’ Ceun asked amiably interrupting the Sergeant’s thoughts.
‘That’s a filthy stereotype, and you know it!’ He replied indignantly. ‘My wife has me on a very strict diet. I’m this shape because it’s genetic!’
Ceun leaned forward, pointing towards a large globule of jam clinging tenuously to the material of the Sergeant’s jacket. The man looked down. ‘Oh great,’ he whined. ‘And how am I going to explain this when I get home?’
‘Jam monster exploded on you?’ Ceun offered helpfully as the Sergeant took a handkerchief from his pocket, spit on it and began dabbing at the mess ineffectually.
‘Ahem?’ Ceun coughed ‘I don’t mean to be difficult, but I have a prisoner to book in who could be described as a little on the hostile side.’ The Sergeant leaned over the desk and surveyed the knot of arms and legs.
‘I wanth to complainth abouth policth brutalitith.’ It spluttered. There did seem to be an interesting trickle coming from a part of it that may well have been a nose, but on the other hand, that could have been completely normal.
The Sergeant looked towards Ceun. ‘You hear that? Brutalitith?’
‘This gentleman attempted to escape as I was trying to apprehend him. I was forced to persuade him that this was not a good idea.’ Ceun said with a shrug.
‘Heth tied me in a knoth!’ the creature squeaked.
‘But on the plus side, he is no longer trying to escape.’ Ceun added warmly.
The officer shifted through a pile on his desk. He found the sheet he was looking for and pulled it out with a flourish. ‘Ah, here we are. Zweep let's have a look at the balance sheet. Assault with a deadly appendage, demanding services with menaces – I don’t think I even want to know about that – extortion and blackmail using information you gained while in the guise of an aspidistra. It’s not very pretty Zweep, is it?’
‘It wasth all a mistake!’ The creature moaned ‘I’ve been frameth!’
‘More potted if you were a plant! Eh? Eh?’
Ceun and the creature both looked at the grinning man blankly. ‘Never mind,’ he said, the smile fading, ‘Right then, let’s be having you.’ He pulled a lever causing the front portion of the desk to slide away. ‘In you go Zweep.’
Zweep however, had no intention of going quietly. He had managed to unravel part of himself and was currently changing into a green ooze. Ceun grabbed at the remaining solid parts of the prisoner and squeezed him into the hole. Just as it closed, a fountain of gloop shot straight up. The Sergeant pulled the lever, and the prisoner disappeared just as the gloop remembered a little thing called gravity and covered him from head to waist. Blinking, he cleared the goo out of his eyes.
‘I think we’ve solved the problem of the jam mark.’ Ceun said conversationally.
‘Bloody shapeshifters,’ The Sergeant complained. ‘Why is it at the end of the day they always revert to ooze? They’re frightened, they ooze. They’re angry, they ooze. What is it with these things?’
‘They’re not very adventurous, I suppose. Ooze works.’ Ceun replied, filling in the register.
‘Not like polymorphs; now they are a completely different kettle of fish entirely.’ The Sergeant said, looking at the ineffective handkerchief. Ceun paused almost imperceivably.
The Sergeant continued, his head disappearing underneath the desk as he searched for something more absorbent. ‘Morphs, they really do give me the eebie jeebies. As if it’s not enough that they get into your head…’
‘Get into your head?’ Ceun said.
‘Well not like your head as such, but it’s freaky that they don’t have a real ‘them’. You know what I mean. Whoever you want them to be; that’s just who they are. It’s as if they don’t exist unless you are with them. What do they see when they look in the mirror, that’s what I want to know?’ He popped up from behind the desk, brandishing a discarded towel in triumph.
‘That is the question.’ Ceun rested his elbows on the desk.
‘There’s got to be no good in someone who manipulates you like that. It’s…’
‘It’s how they were created; not much they can do about it.’ Ceun said.
The Sergeant shuddered, ‘I know, I know they do their thing and can make people in Realitas happy, spending time with their loved ones and all that stuff, but that kind of power, it’s got to warp a person. Do you remember that one went rogue last year? Now she was crazy, completely homicidal. Was in some bloke’s dream and became completely obsessed. I tell you she’d have done for him and his wife too. Brought in here kicking, screaming and scratching like a little hellcat.’
Ceun still hadn’t moved, a plastic smile plastered on his face. ‘They’re pampered creatures, used to getting their own way.’
‘She certainly learned the hard way, elite or not. You can’t go taking revenge on some human just because you don’t get your way.’ The Sergeant laughed. ‘Hey.’ His brow creased in thought, ‘You brought her in didn’t you?’
‘I did.’ Ceun said. ‘You deserved danger money for that one Hawke and no mistake.
‘Thanks, now any chance that the state is going to pay me my bounty for Mr Zweep? How am I going to keep up my rock and roll lifestyle if I don’t have the cash?’
The Sergeant leant forward conspiratorially, ‘You mean the fast cars and the women, right? I’ve heard about you bounty hunters…’
‘I couldn’t even begin to tell you.’ Ceun whispered. The Sergeant raised his eyebrows hopefully. ‘No.’ Ceun said, ‘I really can’t tell you.'
‘Right, well, yes.’ The Sergeant coughed. ‘Of course, I’ll just get it from the safe for you.’ In a moment he was back with two envelopes.
‘Did I earn a bonus or is it my birthday and you clubbed together?’ Ceun smiled, unnerving the Sergeant.
‘One is the bounty the other is a message left for you.’ ‘For me?’ Ceun examined the seal.
‘It hasn’t been opened, the person who left it was very definite that it was for your eyes only.’ The Sergeant said hurriedly.
‘And who could that have been I wonder?’ Ceun asked, taking a penknife and unsealing the note.
‘Um, I’m not sure. I could ask around?’ the Sergeant replied. Ceun waved a hand dismissively as he opened the letter and read it through slowly.
‘Bad news?’ asked the Sergeant. Ceun fixed him with a gaze of steel. ‘I think we can safely say it isn’t good.’
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