Braxton, Jerry, and Rosa made their way to the New Chemeketa City Hall after a quick snack break. Considering the city of New Chemeketa and the Mendakian Union as a whole had dozens of laws and heavy taxes regulating the ownership and usage of personal vehicles to preserve their cultural and environmental heritage, it was a short, uneventful drive wholly uncomplicated by nonexistent traffic.

  Braxton placed the car in the parking ramp of the city hall and killed the electric engine. The trio then walked to the front of the city hall. Even if this would not be the first or the last time Jerry would be here, he always looked the building up and down and whistled like a skeevy construction worker watching an attractive woman pass by. Like many older buildings in the Mendakian Union not demolished during the Mendakian Uprising or the Lucean Repression, it was not only a fascinating piece of Almandican history, but a damned fine piece of architectural ass to somebody like Jerry. Admittedly, he was not well-versed about architecture unless one counted his intimate knowledge of destroying it, but still admired the late colonial design of the city hall that projected order, beauty, and a little bit of subtle menace with its towering height.

  “Don’t you just love how this building looks?” Jerry asked Braxton and Rosa.

  “Eh,” Rosa said. “I see most grand architectural projects as manifestations of terror management. Pretty to look at, but ultimately nothing too fascinating.”

  Jerry scoffed. “Get a load of this woman.”

  “I think the building looks fine,” Braxton said. “It’s a very handsome edifice, but I’ve heard that some people say it should be modernized. Redecorated, they say.”

  “How about ‘modernizing and redecorating’ my pale ass instead,” Jerry hissed. “This building is a work of art. Who in their right mind wants to tear down fine art?”

  “According to an article I was reading earlier this week, I’ve heard that some activists have claimed that this building is a symbol of the Leonist era of the Mendakian Union that led to the death of millions, so it should be redecorated to reflect the times.” Braxton shrugged. “Can’t say I agree or disagree with anybody involved. I know it’s very ironic coming from me considering my job, but I like to stay out of political bullshit whenever I can.”

  “Wise choice,” Rosa added. “I’d rather beat my head in with a claw hammer than give my opinion on the culture war topic of the week. Find somebody stupider than I to be your unthinking instrument of aggrievement."

  “Twelvedamn it, you two,” Jerry said. “I don’t see how a building can be offensive to anybody. People are softer than baby shit these days.”

  “Says the forty-something year old man about to have an emotional breakdown near the steps of a federal building over two people not agreeing with everything he says,” Rosa said.

  Jerry kissed his teeth at her. “For such a little woman, I remain amazed by the size of your massive mouth.”

  “You’re good at inspiring grand, but mostly negative feelings in me,” Rosa said. “But you ought to keep in mind that sometimes the most valuable things in life can come to you in small packages, like gold rings, silver necklaces, seeds, or—”

  “A pill full of some poison specially designed to kill somebody like me so I don’t have to hear you endlessly jabber in my ear,” Jerry said.

  “Cut it out, you two,” Braxton said. “In defense of the activists, I suppose plenty of wonderful looking things in a troubled place like the Mendakian Union stand for horrible causes. Like that one amphitheater for public guillotines that got torn down a few years ago in North New Chemeketa.”

  “Well, how about this,” Jerry said. “I read in one of the papers I smuggled in from Arrowzonac that some of these supposed activists are so outraged, they say they’re gonna attack Eurisians until the city hall is redecorated. They’re calling it ‘Kick a Krieglander’ Day. Now, I don’t know if that’s true or not, but—”

  “What?” Braxton looked flummoxed. “Seriously, what the Vullen are you talking about, man? That’s not real. That’s not happening. There is no ‘Kick a Krieglander Day,’ and there never will be. You need to stop reading that mind poison you get from Arrowzonac, or I’m going to report you to Mr. Moon for smuggling forbidden literature.”

  “Pull the trigger already,” Rosa pleaded.

  “You wouldn’t even think of it,” Jerry yelled.

  “I promise you I will if you don’t start using that Twelvegiven, but long neglected thing in your head called a brain,” Braxton said. “I suggest you hop to it today.”

  “Fine,” Jerry huffed. “Sorry for trying to think in alternative ways.”

  “There’s alternative ways of thinking,” Braxton said. “Then there’s ways of thinking that turn your brain into a bunch of mushy bullshit. Now, let’s keep it moving, shall we? We have a job to do instead of babbling this way and that way about the sociopolitical conundrums of old buildings.”

  The trio resumed walking up the dozens of well-kept stone stairs of the city hall. A few office workers, gendarmes, and civilians were milling about, smoking cigarettes, talking, and otherwise carrying on.

  Some of the aforementioned activists attempted to hand out homemade pamphlets to hardly interested passerbys, which now included Rosa, Braxton, and Jerry. Rosa and Braxton politely took the pamphlets they definitely planned to throw into the trash later without issue, but not Jerry. When one of the activists tried to hand a pamphlet to him, he sneered like a territorial dog and made an odd, grotesque sound that was halfway between a dismissive scoff and a phlegmy bark, causing the poor activist to flinch away in fear of being struck.

  “Get a real job,” Jerry shouted, “so that way, you can get some real, worthwhile paper in your paws instead of that bothersome nonsense!”

  Braxton and Rosa shook their heads in shame at Jerry’s bullying, but said nothing.

  Following this episode, they pushed through the large, reinforced doors of the city hall, where a security desk was. All the three needed to do was flash their silver Triple I Division badges, and the armed security guards let them through with no complaint.

  The lobby of the city hall was a large, sunlight-drenched place because of the high glass ceiling above that caused long, fascinated stares and painful, strained necks. It contrasted well with the dull inner workings of the building itself, where nameless bureaucrats, high heeled secretaries, and the other professionals that were vital to making sure the boring aspects of New Chemeketa worked within.

  In some of the darkened corners of the city hall lobby, there stood Tinmen armed with active, quietly humming stun batons. Tinmen were a fusion of Lascauxian ingenuity, Yerbakian metal fabrication techniques, and Hissian technology. They resembled faceless, for-armed men made of metal skin, cog innards, and artificially intelligent nervous systems. All of them were taller than most other sapients, including even Braxton, and somehow looked meaner despite their unnerving facelessness.

  In the event somebody attacked the city hall, the Tinmen would come alive and beat the Vullen out of them with alarming speed and aggression until a smarter, more durable response such as gendarmes or Exorcist Division operators came. In the vein of other Hissian technology such as the Ventrue Cats, Tinmen required esoteric knowledge to build and maintain if ever damaged. So rather than being the first line of defense, Tinmen worked the best as supplemental distractions that discouraged incidents of anti-social behavior.

  However, the other major weakness of Tinmen was their horrifying, but rare tendency to literally disarm sapients in attempts to force the detached limbs onto themselves for inexplicable reasons. It was like something in their digitalized, black box minds obsessed over the idea of gaining even more arms. But incident reports of this alarming behavior tended to be suppressed or censored for obvious reasons by the Mendakian Union’s government.

  Jerry had read a few of those reports, witnessed their attached photos, and watched graphic, unedited videos of such “Tin on Skin” incidents. Even with his status as a combat veteran in mind, he was not a fan of their stomach-turning contents.

  The trio made their way to the front desk of the city hall. A small Affrodian man with half-moon glasses sat behind it. They greeted him, introduced themselves as Triple I Division agents, then asked him who was responsible for watching the blueprint repository of New Chemeketa’s federal buildings. The man at the front desk told the trio that that person would be Lisa DeWinters, who could be found in her office on the third floor. They told him thanks then made their way there.

  Unlike the rest of the city hall, the blueprint room was kept at a cooler, desiccated temperature to preserve the original blueprints. The unique atmosphere of the room made Jerry sneeze, Braxton cough, and Rosa’s eyes water a little. They spent little time wandering around the boring and sterile room, choosing instead to go directly to DeWinter’s office by the blueprint room.

  Inside the office she sat at a small desk filled with all manner of papers, files, and folders. She was a midsized, professional-looking Lascauxian woman with brown hair, blue eyes, and a young, rounded face that suggested some level of naivety concerning her important role. DeWinters looked up from the paper she was writing on and gasped at Jerry and Rosa, but especially Braxton. His notable stature mixed with his honed skill to move in near-silence when he felt like it tended to invite responses like that.

  Like they practiced many times before, the trio flashed their silver Triple I Division badges at her in unison. Jerry then said, “Good afternoon and better blessings from the Twelve, DeWinters. I’m special agent Genovesi. The man to the right of me is special agent Olumana, and the woman to the left of me is special agent Rodriguez. We have a few questions for you.”

  There was a tense pause before she spoke. “With that exactly, may I ask?”

  “Unfortunately, we can’t disclose that much information to you at this time,” Braxton said. “But what I can tell you is that you’re now involved in a very serious criminal investigation. Your cooperation will be appreciated, but more importantly, mandatory.”

  “I see,” DeWinters said, dry-swallowing. “What would you three like to know?”

  “We would like to know who has accessed the blueprints lately,” Jerry said. “We suspect that somebody who should not have access to them has somehow gotten access to them.”

  “Do you happen to know what blueprints were accessed?” she asked.

  Jerry listed off the blueprints he remembered from the earlier briefing at the field office. “And that about covers it. Am I jogging your memory any, DeWinters?”

  DeWinters rushed to open a drawer in her desk. The quickness of this action made Jerry tense his body for action while his fingers itched for the service pistol hidden within his jacket. But he relaxed upon seeing DeWinters place a thick, hardcover book on the desk that was definitely not a loaded handgun. Jerry had no idea why his mind immediately jumped to incredible violence for no reason.

  Shit, he thought. Maybe Dr. Moenstaggers is onto something with me.

  “This is the logbook that everybody has to sign when they want to borrow, access, or even look at any blueprint I have on hand,” she said. “They also have to list what they’re accessing, too.”

  “Thanks.” Jerry picked up the logbook, looked at it a bit, then decided to crack a small joke to psychologically disarm himself and DeWinters. “If we look at this logbook, do my partners and I have to sign into it well?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh.”

  Jerry, Rosa, Braxton did so, then looked through it together while DeWinters stood by, shaking like a leaf, and watched them with the focused, harrowed eyes of somebody watching a hungry bumblebear rummage through their campsite. Jerry thought she looked nervous, not guilty nervous, but nervous in the way Triple I Division agents made most civilians. Jerry didn’t blame her. He would be considering how fast his feet could take him if he was a civilian trapped in his office with three people legally granted the authority to ruin his life were asking him questions, too.

  The logbook was a seldom accessed thing on account of the only people caring about blueprints being work crew leaders, architectural students or professors doing research, or the occasional weirdo who somehow got the authorization to know what the floor plan of the New Chemeketa courthouse looked like with their own two eyes. However, one of the entries caught Jerry’s eyes. It was authored by a man with the “name” of “Jacques Inoff.”

  Jerry couldn’t help but laugh at the immature humor. In the Mendakian Union, “Jacques Inoff” was the common fake name smart-assed, misbehaving teenagers gave to the gendarmes when they were caught doing something they weren’t supposed to be doing. What wasn’t very funny were all of the blueprints “Jacques Inoff” had accessed for copying. Whoever he was working with intended to do a lot of damage.

  Jerry placed the logbook on DeWinters’ desk while he continued to laugh. “Are you serious?”

  “A-about what?” she asked.

  “About this!” Jerry jabbed an angry finger on one of “Jacques Inoff's” many entries. “You do understand that the name Jacques Inoff is not a real name, right?”

  “I-I swear I didn’t,” she said. “I was a sheltered child, okay?”

  Braxton and Rosa sighed as one, but said nothing. The two looked more disappointed rather than angry considering the immense gravity of the situation.

  “I swear on the Twelve above and the life of my three cats that I didn’t know it was a fake name,” DeWinters said. “He gave me a letter with the signature of a man in good standing with the Mendakian Union like everybody else needs to!”

  One of Jerry’s bushy eyebrows rose. “From who?”

  DeWinters produced a slip of paper and handed it to Jerry. He read it quickly. It was some well-written note about how a firefighter chief by the name Brunson Vogelmite needed copies of the blueprints belonging to several federal buildings in New Chemeketa to train new firefighters. Signed at the bottom of the letter was a fake signature by Brunson Vogelmite. Jerry desperately hoped “Jacques Inoff” was stupid enough to use the real name of a real firefighter chief to reduce the amount of tedious footwork he, Rosa, and Braxton would need to do to find him. It was not uncommon for Triple I Division agents to foil astoundingly intricate criminal plots because of absurd bullshit like clerical errors and overlooking small details.

  “Thank you for that little slice of mandatory cooperation,” Jerry said to DeWinters. “But I have some good advice for you.”

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  “Yes?”

  Jerry pointed at his temple and said, “Use DeBrain the next time strange people come in here to ask for sensitive blueprints, DeWinters.”

  Rosa and Braxton groaned at Jerry’s neverending bullshit.

  “Are you people going to arrest me?” she asked. “Am I going to lose my job?”

  “Nobody here is going to arrest you,” Braxton said, slyly taking himself out of the equation if DeWinters did end up getting arrested by somebody else. “But when it comes to your job?” He shrugged. “That’s in the hands of the Twelve now, I’m afraid. I’d come clean as soon as possible and admit you messed up before your employer finds out you messed up. That might save your job, but I can’t guarantee you anything.”

  “I know this might not be helpful to your current investigation, but I need to come clean about something,” DeWinters said.

  “That would be?” Rosa asked.

  “Do you know who Dacia DeWinters is?”

  “Should we?” Jerry asked.

  “He’s my uncle and the only reason I have this job. If it isn’t apparent by now, I’m quite terrible at it,” DeWinters said. “I’m a nepotism hire. I didn’t even want this job! I just needed the money for one of my cats, Mimzy, to get surgery for his eyes! Does that make me some deranged criminal beyond redemption?”

  “This might sound real funny coming from somebody like me, but I’m failing to make heads or tails of what you’re telling me right now,” Jerry said. “Are all those admissions supposed to lead to something or—”

  “I hope it doesn’t lead to anything,” DeWinters said, “but all I’m saying is that in the event you need to arrest somebody for something that isn’t me, my uncle, who I remind you is named Dacia DeWinters and lives at 4352 Gobelins Lane South, might be more culpable than I.”

  Jerry roared with laughter. “Damn, DeWinters! You are a real piece of work! All it takes is two tall, scary-looking guys and one half-pint of a woman coming into your office to ask you a few softball questions, you’re singing like a tea kettle. I don’t think you’re built for the Mendakian Union.”

  “On the contrary,” Rosa said, “immediately folding and naming names at the first sign of adversity is not only the Mendakian Union way, but also the Almandican way as well.”

  “I love seeing eye to eye with you even if I have to look down to do that,” Jerry said.

  “Don’t push it,” Rosa said.

  “How come you two only seem to get along when it's being mean or cynical together?” Braxton asked them.

  “TBTBC,” Jerry said.

  “What does that mean?” DeWinters asked.

  “Total Bastard To Total Bitch Communication,” Jerry said. “It’s a rare and elusive psychic condition where the total bastards and total bitches of Catto Occulo such as Rosa and I can align our disparate wavelengths and think as one entity.”

  “Whatever you say,” Braxton said, signing deeply.

  “What now?” DeWinters asked.

  Jerry shrugged. “I dunno. I guess don’t be stupid and don’t throw others under the autotrolley without zero pressure?”

  With that said, Braxton, Jerry, and Rosa left DeWinter’s office then the New Chemeketa City Hall as well. They piled into the car and were quiet for several moments until Rosa broke the silence with a soft sigh. “Well, that was fucking stupid.”

  “Yeah, I know, Rosie,” said Jerry. “But just be glad this whole thing is being fucking stupid in our favor.”

  Thirty or so minutes later, the trio turned up at the New Chemeketa Fire Station Thirteen, where Brunson Vogelmite was the chief firefighter. Some civilian employees at the New Chemeketa Triple I Division field office had performed the fastest job they could to locate him, and did a great job of it. Funding cuts be damned, those pencil pushers at the field office often performed more sorcery than some Touched when asked to do so.

  The trio exited the car and walked into the fire station, greeting people and looking around as they did so. They eventually asked to see Brunson Vogelmite. A beefy, junior firefighter with an impeccable mustache guided them to him.

  He was in the fire station’s cafeteria with several other of his subordinates, eating an overfilled roast beef sandwich that was befitting of such a beefy man. Vogelmite was the firefighter chief not just in name, but in size as well. He had muscular, hirsute arms, a mustache that looked like he wore a skinned Hissian on his face, and a massive, blond-haired head that suggested his mother needed a c-section to survive giving birth to him.

  Jerry wasted no time greeting the gigantic fellow. “Good afternoon and better blessings from the Twelve.” He shook Vogelmite’s large, crumb-covered hand. Vogelmite had a masculine handshake that was respectful, but also felt firm enough to crush rocks.

  “Likewise! Judging by those nice suits you three are wearing,” he said with a deep, baritone voice, “I’m going to guess Triple I Division. How may I help you folks?”

  “We’re part of an ongoing investigation related to the fire that burned down the Carber Carpentry Workshop,” Jerry said. “Do you happen to be familiar with that incident, sir?”

  “Not quite,” Vogelmite said. “But some firefighters I know are. They said that just about everything related to it felt off. Still, you can ask me anything about it, and I’ll give you the best answers I can provide.”

  “That’s real good to know,” Jerry said. “Do you have a private place where we can talk? My friends and I have a few sensitive things we want to discuss with you.”

  “Sure thing.” Vogelmite wiped his mouth clean. “But let me just finish my lunch, please.”

  “Take all the time you need, sir.”

  The trio and Vogelmite met in his office a few moments later. It was a small, but well-decorated place dense with firefighter memorabilia and group photographs of previous generations of firefighters. The most eye-catching thing in the office were two fire axes with silver blades crossed over a firefighter’s jacket that hung behind Vogelmite’s desk on the wall. Jerry thought the fire axes were a somewhat ostentatious decoration for a simple fire station, but badass in a charming, childlike way.

  Jerry and Braxton sat in front of Vogelmite while Rosa decided to stand guard by the office’s door. She folded her brawny arms across her chest and stared off into her own weird, little world.

  Vogelmite smirked at Jerry. “I noticed you looking at the silver axes. Do you find them impressive?”

  “Yeah,” Jerry admitted. “I think they’re downright badass if we’re all gonna be honest with each other.”

  “Glad to hear that,” Vogelmite said. “New Chemeketa doesn’t just give them out to any fire station. They only give them to fire stations that have responded extraordinarily to extraordinary events, like that reverse thunderstorm that happened a few years back. Ever hear about that?”

  “Hear about it?” Jerry scoffed bitterly at the memories. “My friends and I somehow lived through that madness, Vogelmite. I believe there’s a lot of insane things you can actually forget about in life, but certainly not bolts of lightning coming up out of the ground trying to kill you.”

  Vogelmite nodded. “They are quite dangerous. I lost a few good men during that mess. May the Twelve grant their immortal souls rest in the Eternal Arcadia. Either way, before you ask me a few big questions, can I ask you a few small ones”

  “Sure thing,” Jerry said. “Consider my cranium an open book for you to flip through, sir.”

  “Where are you from?” Vogelmite asked. “I don’t mean to put you on the spot, but you have one of the strangest accents I’ve heard in my life.”

  Jerry grinned from ear to ear. “Southeast Almandica. Moundgia born and raised by two Nuragians to be exact.”

  “Interesting. How does somebody from there end up all the way over here working for the Triple I Division?”

  Jerry’s grin faded. “It’s a long story I don’t feel like getting into sadly.” He leaned in towards Vogelmite. “Now, the questions my friends and I have for you.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “To be honest, I fibbed a little to you,” Jerry said. “My friends and I aren’t here about any sort of fire anywhere. That’s not our wheelhouse. We’re here about this.”

  Jerry produced the forged letter by the enigmatic “Jacques Inoff.” He unfurled it and placed it on Vogelmite’s desk. Vogelmite read the letter. The more his thick lips moved while reading the letter, the redder his once calm and friendly face became. By the time he finished reading the letter, his large head looked like it was about to grow three times larger and explode in a cloud of blood and brains.

  “So—“

  “That perverted son of a bitch,” Vogelmite roared so loudly, Jerry, Braxton, and even Rosa looked at him with wide, shocked eyes. “I knew it! I knew he was bad news from the moment I threw that good for nothing piece of shit out on his scrawny ass, but I never thought he would do something like this.” Vogelmite slammed a bread loaf sized fist on the desk, causing an empty mug to tip over. “The Twelve damn that degenerate to Vullen!”

  “I’m going to safely assume you’re familiar with whoever forged this letter,” Jerry said.

  “Damn right I am!” Vogelmite continued yelling, his eyes bugging out of his head. “This bullshit reeks of Adnot’s filthy, perverted handiwork.”

  “Charles Adnot?” Braxton asked. “We’ve heard about him before.”

  “That’s no surprise,” Vogelmite bellowed. “Charles fucking Adnot!”

  The door to Vogelmite’s office opened without warning. The trio looked at the uninvited guest to Vogelmite’s implacable rage at the same time. It was the junior firefighter who had guided them to Vogelmite earlier.

  “Hey, I’ve been hearing a lot of yelling,” he said. “Is everything—”

  “Lufric, If you keep opening my office door without knocking,” Vogelmite screamed, “I will make you do laps around one of the fire engines until I turn you as red as it is.”

  Lufric looked like he was about to cry before he immediately closed the door to Vogelmite’s office. The trio returned their attention back to Vogelmite, who seemed to have calmed himself down by threatening another person with physical punishment. Jerry disliked how relatable that was to see in another person.

  “I thought Adnot was a decent kid, if a bit of an odd one,” Vogelmite said. “Then I found out what he was doing, so I gave him the ultimatum of leaving quietly or having me drag his perverted ass to the gendarmes.”

  “What exactly did Adnot do?” Jerry asked. “And why do you keep calling him things like perverted, filthy, and degenerate?”

  “Because it’s all true,” Vogelmite said. “You want to know what Adnot was doing? He was stealing panties from the female victims of fires we were responding to. Real sick shit that made me want to take one of these axes behind me and bury it in the back of his head. We have a good reputation to maintain here at Station Thirteen.”

  “Okay,” Jerry said. “Don’t you think it would’ve been, I don’t know, the smarter thing to report somebody like that to the authorities rather than cutting him off like dead weight to be a weird pervert elsewhere?”

  Despite his immense size, Vogelmite suddenly looked small and embarrassed in his office chair. “I told you. I didn’t want to ruin the good reputation of this fire station.”

  Rosa said something in her native language under her breath. Jerry looked at her and said, “Come again in Lordish, Rosa?”

  “Sometimes the sick bird that is thrown from the nest instead of pecked to death comes to bring back more sickness,” she said. “It’s a brutal, but often correct saying from where I’m from.”

  “Our impromptu poet is right,” Jerry said to Vogelmite. “Adnot might’ve been a messed up little freak, but you also messed up by not telling anybody about his misbehavior.”

  Vogelmite said nothing in response. The trio had heard enough and gotten what they came to confirm, so they stood up without saying anything else. Just as they were about to leave Vogelmite’s office, he called out to Jerry.

  “What do you want, sir?”

  “It wasn’t just the reputation of the station I was worried about,” Vogelmite said quietly. “It’s a manpower issue, too. Nobody wants to be a firefighter these days. It’s a supposed dream job of many in this supposedly great nation we call the Mendakian Union, but when they see the pay of being one, they usually turn their faces towards other more lucrative work. Frankly? I don’t blame them.”

  “I imagine getting people willing to run into burning buildings for little pay is a hard sell to most,” Jerry said. “Should I be shocked about this plight?”

  “You should,” Vogelmite said. “Being a firefighter in the Mendakian Union is a raw deal. Long hours. Dangerous, grueling conditions. Bad wages. And for the love of the Twelve, I have to pay for my own life insurance! Imagine risking your life for people unwilling to give you a proper funeral.”

  “I actually do understand that struggle,” Jerry said. “But what the Vullen do you want me to do about it? Write a strongly worded letter to one of the Five Chairs of the Mendakian Union? My friend, the unique situation involving my employment barely allows me to talk back to my Hissian supervisor, who I’m certain would turn my tibias into trumpets if given the chance and a dark alleyway. Only the dead don’t have problems these days.”

  Vogemite rubbed his broad face and tired eyes. “Yeah…I admit I did a very stupid thing turning Charles Adnot loose instead of turning him into the gendarmes, but I did what I needed to do to avoid making a bad situation worse for everybody.”

  Jerry scratched his fuzzy chin and yawned. He wasn’t in the mood to even attempt to hide his open contempt for Vogelmite. “Tragic,” he said without an ounce of even mocking empathy, “but what you’re describing sounds like a personal problem.”

  “Trust me,” Vogelmite said. “The situation with the firefighters of the Mendakian Union will eventually become everybody’s problem, but I can’t say I’m surprised somebody like you is acting like this.”

  Jerry stopped scratching his chin and glared at him. “Mind expounding on what you just said to me?”

  “Don’t do this,” Braxton said. “It’s not as worth it as you think it is.”

  “Attempting to give this man of all people good advice, are we?” Rosa asked. “You’re better off trying to give water to a man with no throat.”

  “You know exactly what I mean, Mr. Special Agent Genovesi,” Vogelmite hissed with open contempt. “As a special agent working for the Triple I Division, you’re in a whole different world compared to somebody like me. You get unlimited respect. You get unlimited rights to bully and berate everybody around you. And most important of all, you get good dental insurance. I haven’t been to a dentist in three years!”

  “A good gum massage does wonders for the soul,” Rosa said to herself, as if she had just started listening to the conversation unfolding before her.

  “You know what,” Jerry barked. “If your little situation as a chief firefighter is so twelvedamned miserable, then quit and get another job. A woman I’m close to, who I somehow respect and despise in equal measure, once told me that self pity is the world’s most potent poison. This is because…aw, shit! I forgot what she said.”

  Rosa shook her head in the background.

  “But like I was saying,” Jerry continued, “you look hale, healthy and brainy enough for it, especially with that gigantic thing on your shoulders you have the audacity to call a head.”

  “What did you just say about my head?” Vogelmite shouted, his anger revitalized.

  “I said what I said, and I meant what I said,” Jerry insisted. “What? Is the government also not paying you enough to have functional ears or buy a mirror? If your head was any bigger, I’m certain somebody could light your feet on fire, and you would take off into the sky like a hot air balloon. Maybe that should be your new job!”

  “Fuck you,” Vogelmite yelled.

  “No, fuck you,” Jerry yelled louder as he advanced towards him, fists clenched and ready for violence. “I want to take some of your teeth out so bad, mine are itching for it.”

  Braxton placed his hand on Jerry’s shoulder and pulled him back. “Jerry.”

  “What?”

  “Drop it,” he whispered into his ear. “Drop it right now and let’s all leave.”

  “Fine,” Jerry said. He glared at Vogelmite one last time. “Have a great day, chief.”

  “I’ll see you in Vullen.”

  “I hope you get to Vullen first, so when I get there later, I will land on your massive head and break my fall.”

  Braxton clenched his right fist and raised it high in the emotionally charged air of the office. He then brought his fist down on Vogelmite’s desk with such sudden, incredible violence, it punched a large hole through it. Braxton shook his hand in pain, but maintained what little was left of his shattered composure.

  Jerry and Vogelmite’s petty argument ended without another single word said. Vogelmite’s mouth gaped in terror.

  “M-my desk…” he squeaked in a voice befitting a man half his size. “That was solid oak…”

  A heavy, profound silence filled the room, broken only by Rosa dry coughing into her elbow.

  “Am I the only person in this fucking room right now,” Braxton asked after a few moments, “who is sick of seeing this inane back and forth bullshit between what should be two men who are adults in name only?”

  Rosa nodded. “Boys will be boys, often to their detriment.”

  Braxton pointed at Jerry then at Vogelmite, who flinched. “Apologize.”

  “But—”

  “Apologize.”

  Jerry fought down the nigh indomitable urge to sarcastically suck his teeth, knowing it would only worsen Braxton’s rare moment of explosive rage, then said, “I’m sorry for acting like an irascible jackass, Vogelmite.”

  “Now you apologize to him as well, Vogelmite,” Braxton ordered.

  Vogelmite pointed a shaky finger at his desk with a Braxton fist-sized hole in it. “But—”

  “I’ll pay for it later out of my paycheck. Apologize.”

  “I—”

  Before Vogelmite had the opportunity to apologize, the catcallers in Braxton’s, Rosa’s, and Jerry’s pockets came alive at the same time. The loud, collective ringing somehow sounded desperate and urgent in Vogelmite’s small office.

  Jerry looked at his catcaller. It was Anthony requesting a conference call with Braxton and Rosa. Jerry gave them both a nervous glance before answering his catcaller.

  “What’s going on?” he asked. “This kinda thing doesn’t happen often.”

  “Howard, Mallory, and Noura are at the St. Morlab’s Memorial Hospital.” Anthony’s voice was professional and level as always, but underlined with immense worry. “Something happened when they were trying to apprehend Lee Wortles, and they got attacked. You and the others need to go. Now.”

  Once the conference call ended, the trio rushed out of Vogelmite’s office without a single word said to him.