Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 69: Interlude Leipzig Police Department

There were meetings, and then there were meetings, the kind whose resolution would change the course of event in a noticeable way, the kind that was actually important and which you attended because you were needed, rather than simply having been told to show up.

This one not only fell solidly into the latter category, it would be one of the most important ones Polizeimeister Franz Habicht would likely ever attend.

They were all sitting around a table in one of the precinct’s medium sized meeting rooms, talking over the events that had occurred two hours ago. It was well past the time where any of them would normally be working unless they were on the night shift, but this mess was the very opposite of normal.

The people present were an eclectic bunch, consisting of Polizeirat Schmied, a secretary to take notes, Habicht himself, the profiler who’d identified that terrifying woman, an official from the Bundeskriminalamt and Polizeiobermeister Wirt, a visiting member of the SEK who’d come here to support the local department in these trying times. He was at a high Level, holding both an evolved [Class] and an Aspect.

There was a screen embedded in the table, showing the serial killer’s arrest file, complete with a thorough explanation of her [Skills], as well as the name of her [Class]. Whatever else those crystal claws had done, they’d also broken her defense against being analyzed, so they’d immediately checked for that. The level difference between her and Wirt, who’d done the analyzing because all Thoma could do was detailed descriptions of what something did but not their names, was high enough that checking [Skills] wasn’t possible, but at least they knew what her [Class] was called. [Humanity’s Judgmental Blade of Damocles]. The name said it all, really.

And then there was the elephant in the room, the consultant.

A few years ago, Habicht had been a part of an effort to track down a group of arms smugglers and the Polizeiobermeister in charge of that effort had decided to make sure they paid attention by demonstrating the stakes … which had involved bringing out a confiscated bazooka and putting it on the meeting table. Of course, this had had the exact opposite effect than he’d intended, with everyone staring at the weapon as if it were a live snake, instead of listening to him ramble. You left a lot of idiots in the dust as you rose through the ranks, but you couldn’t get rid of all of them.

Isaac Thoma, the consultant, was having a similar effect on Habicht right now. He’d pulled of something that had to be seen to be believed and even then, Habicht had had to already rewatch the footage from his bodycam to try and convince himself he hadn’t gone crazy. Twice.

Prior to the raid, when they’d been waiting on a target, Habicht had decided to do a little snooping, ask around if anyone knew the new people who’d come here to help with the serial killer. The non-SEK people, anyway.

The local summoner had been utterly useless, having made a couple of stupid comments during meetings and otherwise being a waste of time and money, not even having shown up for the actual arrest.

The profiler was alright, coming with solid recommendations and everything else needed to make him sound good, but Habicht didn’t know enough about his profession to make a proper judgement.

And then you had the [System] researcher who’d helped out the police in his hometown several times, and all the anecdotes had pained a picture of helpfulness and a level of patience and understanding that was practically saintly. There was one story making the rounds about him having come off an intercontinental flight, after not having sleep for multiple days, then getting called out to help with what turned out to be the most basic of monsters, followed by six hours of paperwork. And all throughout that, he’d never gotten annoyed, or so the story went.

Yet it had held true, for the most part. Even covered in blood, severed hand lying at his feet as the stump slowly healed over so he didn’t bleed out, Thoma had been calm.

The only crack in that façade had been when he’d gotten truly fed up with all the people asking about the hand and if he was sure it would grow back, but all he’d done was ask for a permanent marker, drawn a circle around the base of the stump and then told people to pay attention to how the circle would grow further and further away from the tip of his arm as it regrew.

Now, though, both the mark and stump were covered in an oven mitt. The regrowing flesh had looked positively ghastly, so Thoma had asked for something to cover it up with and a mitt from the cafeteria had been on hand.

The rest of the outfit, on the other hand, was pretty formal, being just a police issue shirt and pants without rank insignia, given that that had been the easiest thing to find in a specific size.

So that was how he sat there, the man who could have killed everyone in the building with ease, manifested his soulbound weapon and obliterated everyone on the floor with a single projected edge, the most terrifyingly powerful person Habicht had ever met. Dressed in a police uniform without a proper rank … and an oven mitt on his right hand.

“First things first, is she secure?” the official from the Bundeskriminalamt asked “If she were awake, will that cell hold her? Would it hold you, Mr. Thoma?”

Habicht rolled his eyes. Would it have killed that man to read the reports before coming into the meeting. Or, hell, just watch a video barely a minute in length?

“No, but I can walk through walls.” Thoma replied, managing to keep any irritation out of his voice, though Habicht was damn sure he also thought less of the official for having asked that question.

“She, however, can’t do that. She doesn’t have the right Aspect, in fact, she doesn’t have any Aspects.”

“Could you simply have been unable to see it? Like you got caught of guard by that vengeance [Skill]?” Wirt asked.

“No. Aspects are the most obvious things about a person to my sight. Yes, I missed one of her [Skills], but that was a combination of several factors. For one, that [Skill] belonged to her second Evolution [Class], while I’m still on my first Evolution, which made it considerably harder to see. In addition, it was designed to be hard to notice, which further exacerbated the issue. Lastly, the [Skill] clung to my flesh while I was busy analyzing her. And that reminds me, the department should consider limiting what it writes down about its officers’ [Skills] and builds.”

Habicht blinked in surprise at the non-sequitur, and he wasn’t the only one.

“What makes you say that?” Schmied asked.

“Something I realized during the fight is how valuable information is. It was basically all information gathering, trying to figure out what the other person can do to predict what they will do and then ruthlessly exploit that information. For a few moments, she knew everything I could do, and at that point, she’d have kicked my ass even if I’d been twice as strong as I am now.”

“But you won?” Habicht asked. He recalled that moment, where she was smiling at all of them despite the multiple gunshot wounds scattered all over her body, the cuts and burn marks Thoma had inflicted looking painful beyond all reason, yet there she was. Grinning like a loon, dodging bullets as she were making sure a few soap bubbles drifting in the breeze didn’t pop against her body, contemptuously parrying Thoma’s strikes without even properly looking in his direction.

“Yeah. She knew the rules of the game, so I flipped the table and chucked the rulebook out of the window by shifting into my other form. After all, she hadn’t spent any time analyzing that.” Thoma explained.

“Right, that brings up another thing: what the hell was that thing and why didn’t you use it from the beginning?” Wirt asked.

“Two reasons. First of all, I don’t have any weapons in that form, just my claws. I’m fast, but my offensive options are somewhat more limited than they’d be with the two weapons that I can juggle, transform and light on fire at will while still human. In addition, that shift is a cooldown [Skill], so I couldn’t just activate it to try it out.”

“Cooldown [Skill]?”

This time, it was Sarai who asked the question.

“I figured that would be the best descriptor to use. A powerful [Skill] that comes with a massive cooldown. Other possible descriptors would be Ult, Ultimate, Finisher, and so on, and so forth. I need to be judicious in how I use it, so when I caught her analyzing me, I decided to safe it until I had everything I needed from her.

“But I think we’ve gotten a little off topic. As I was saying earlier, I’d suggest not writing down every [Skill] your officers have, just the ones directly necessary for their tasks. Otherwise, anyone who got their hands on their file could make a plan to efficiently dismantle their defenses and kill them with casual ease. Only explain what is necessary for people to know about when hiring them, and let them keep their last ditch defensive powers secret.”

“I’m guessing you’ll follow that same policy of keeping your abilities a secret?” Habicht asked.

“I’ll tell you about anything that’s actually important to the matter at hand.” Thoma explained.

“Still, I think this meeting has gotten very far from its intended purpose.” Habicht said “We’re here to discuss how to properly hold our newest prisoner as well as how we can try to develop our personnel better so that next time, we won’t have to hope a civilian who lives halfway across the country comes to rescue us.”

And that was truly how he viewed that. That he’d been utterly screwed going into things and dying had been the only outcome if it hadn’t been for a random consultant.

That woman had just kept going after being shot multiple times, and the only reason they’d even been able to hit her in the first place was that Thoma had maneuvered things to give them the chance.

First, by literally falling through the walls and letting her smash into the ground in such a way that would have seen her crippled if she’d still been even remotely human.

And then Thoma had told a partial lie that had made them open fire, shooting her … and also hitting someone who was on their side because of that lie. Normally, Habicht would have been utterly furious over that, but this time, he wasn’t.

While he hated to admit it, he knew that without seeing that happen, he wouldn’t have been willing to believe someone telling him about what was about to happen.

Stand back because there was no way he could win this, let the civie handle things? Shoot at the civie because while the bullets might tear through his flesh, the wounds would heal moments later?

Habicht sighed. He knew why Thoma hadn’t told him about any of that, and sadly, he had to admit the other man had been right, even if being lied to, both directly and by omission, did not feel good in the slightest.

That was certainly something he’d change in the future. Anyone could be a truly lethal threat now. In the old world, people could be dangerous without looking it, but there were always signs. People with some form of combat or military training tended to be at least moderately fit, alert, and you could also be pretty certain that anorexic teens or beached whale impersonators wouldn’t pose a physical threat to you.

Sure, they could always be armed, but often, people were wearing clothes that could not hide weapons or be conspicuously dressed in something that worked perfectly to hide something.

Now though, someone could be running around fully nude, leaving any watchers with the absolute certainty that they didn’t have a weapon readily available, but still be able to bring down a building with a flick of their finger.

Going forwards, he’d certainly be spending every free moment working in the summoning program, at least for a few months. He’d make abundantly clear to Schmied that he’d be taking one of those Aspects the department had recently acquired.

“As far as holding a prisoner with literal superpowers, there are very few currently proven ways to do that.

“The first is pretty basic, all you have to do is counter someone’s [Skills]. For example, the LAPD had a thief who could teleport anything he knew was there into his hand at a decent range, meaning that keeping things that could be used as a lockpick or, gods forbid, the key, out of his hands would be an exercise in futility. So they ended up welding the door shut.

“With your current prisoner, the method is similarly simple. She specialized in analysis, her weapon and stealth, with her Stats being primarily placed in Agility and Perception, rather than Strength. A normal cell door should be able to hold her in as long as she doesn’t have any tools. Mind you, if her [Skill] for using knives is anything like mine, she could quite likely be able to turn any rigid object into a knife.”

“What defines ‘rigid’?” Schmied asked.

“Anything that doesn’t flop around if you only hold it by one end, basically. Plastic, metal, rocks, ceramics, stuff like that. Also, the same material may only work under some circumstances, for example, I can’t turn a cooked noodle into a weapon, but I can do the same to one before it goes into the pot.”

The official from the Bundeskriminalamt sniggered, but Habicht glared at him and shook his head disapprovingly. There wasn’t much to find funny about the fact that there were people who could take a piece of pasta and turn it into a weapon that could tear through solid metal.

“Anyway, like I was saying, as long as there isn’t anything in her cell that she could use as a lever or weapon, she won’t be able to break down the door. That being said, the guards and other personnel who interact with her should be changed repeatedly. Her analysis abilities are, quite frankly, bullshit. If given too much time to work on someone, she might even be able to convince someone to let her out by exploiting some weakness or personal trauma.”

“Alright, that’s one. Got any more?” Schmied asked.

“The second one is pretty basic as well, though it might be illegal.”

“Might be?” the official frowned at him.

“Thing is, the biggest danger she poses right now stems from her [Skills], which she can’t use because I broke her ability to channel mana. So once we know how long that lasts, all you need is a [Skill] that ‘damages the spiritual body’ and apply it whenever she’s nearly regained her ability to use mana.”

“Couldn’t we just check when we stop being able to [Inspect] her?” Sarai asked.

“Theoretically, yes, but we don’t know if all [Skills] require the same level of mana channeling ability to use. Her [Privacy] ability might be the first thing to come back online, or it might be the last.”

“Good point.” Schmied said “But you mentioned that this might be illegal?”

Thoma took a deep, fortifying breath before answering “I’m pretty sure that taking damage to one’s spiritual body hurts a lot. As in, I think she fainted from the pain.”

Schmied gulped “Yeah, I don’t think we’re going to be able to get away with torturing prisoners in the name of preventing them from escaping. Why was the illegality even in question?”

“Because first of all, we don’t know if it actually hurts. Also, where the [System] is concerned, we don’t have many laws beyond ‘if your summoned monsters do anything bad, it’s on you’. Like I said, it’s probably illegal, but we don’t know for certain and I figured I’d mention it for completeness’ sake.”

“The real question is how we’re going to get our hands on a weapon like that. Where’d you get yours?” Habicht asked, eagerly leaning closer as if to hear the answer more clearly. That weapon had been impressive as hell, and he’d have loved to get his hands on one.

“[Blades] [Skill] over Level 20, Aspect of the Specter, epic rarity Evolution of [Rogue].” Thoma said.

Yeah, Habicht couldn’t match that. He sighed and leaned backwards in his chair, feeling like someone had dangled a bar of gold in front of his nose and then snatched it away.

But Thoma was already continuing “The third option is one that should be available if the observed patterns of the [System] hold. In essence, [Judges] should eventually gain the ability to magically enforce their rulings, [Prison Wardens] should be able to actually hold their prisoners in their cells. We’ve seen lesser versions of some of those before, but something all [Classes] have in common is that they provide [Skills] to fulfill the [Class’s] purpose at supernatural levels. The issues I foresee with this solution are twofold. First, we actually need to get someone to the Level where they can get those [Skills]. And the second is if that Level is sufficient to hold a serial killer with a legendary [Class] above Level 25.

“So now all we have to do is get someone with one of those [Classes] who is willing to fight monsters, and can do so without combat [Skills].” the official said, thoughtfully rubbing his chin.

“Actually, I’m pretty sure I have a solution for that. Object empowering [Skills] cost mana, or at least the ones that have been observed in [Engineers], [Blacksmiths], and [Construction Workers] do. The same should go for [Prison Wardens]. Therefore, their build will require a heavy investment in the magic Stats. If you get them an Aspect with a mana hungry offensive [Skill], they should kick ass. Some bodyguards to make sure they don’t get eaten when they don’t manage to kill the monster wouldn’t go amiss, but otherwise, it should be fine.” Thoma shrugged, clearly taking it for granted that someone would be willing to face down a monster with only a single combat [Skill].

“All of those are solutions we should look into, but I think this is as far as we can go on this topic without needing to do some research.” Schmied said, and the meeting continued, though it grew far less interesting from there. It was mostly basic discussion about how to best level officers and spread out Aspects, an issue that Thoma referred to as the ‘Cultivation Sect Problem’. Reaching truly extraordinary heights required not just time, but very specific resources, which could either be spread out across people to produce a mediocre result, or concentrated on specific talented individual to produce powerhouses.

Eventually, the meeting drew to a close, and they began to talk about everyone’s general thoughts on the whole ‘summoning problem’.

“At the end of the day, simply outlawing summoning isn’t going to work. It offers too many benefits and is too damn easy.” Thoma explained “If a law is passed that renders it illegal, people will just do it in secret and be very disinclined to help the government in any way, shape, or form. If, on the other hand, summoning specific, highly unsafe summoning practices were made illegal and heavily punished, it should seriously cut down on the number of innocents caught in the crossfire.”

“If I may ask, where do you summon?” Sarai asked.

“A heavily fortified bunker able to stand up to most Tier 5s or my backyard … but I live in the middle of nowhere and I’ve set up a system that automatically warns anyone nearby of whatever monster I’ve summoned if it goes badly. Also, I’m careful.”

“You lost a hand.” the official grumbled.

“Yes, I lost a hand … in a situation that would have cost anyone else their head.” Thoma replied icily. Habicht didn’t blame him. Someone who hadn’t been involved in a mess like that for years, if ever, had no business nitpicking people about it.

They talked a little more about the basic ideas of safe summoning as an actual specialist saw it, rather than the so-called ‘experts’ that the department had hired in the past. They’d talked a good game to actually get the job, but then, all they’d had was speculation … and that was when they weren’t outright guessing. Thoma, on the other hand, actually knew what he was talking about, complete with being able to reference specific examples of when something had or had not worked, point out exceptions and overall, he told them useful things. And when he didn’t actually know something, he A. admitted it and B. still made well-reasoned and thoroughly explained guesses.

“And I don’t suppose you’d be amenable to being hired by the Bundeskriminalamt directly?” the official asked as the meeting broke up, looking at Thoma. Habicht hadn’t learned the man’s name in the beginning and at this point, he was refusing to do so on general principle.

“Hard pass. No offense, but I really like my current job.” Thoma grinned “But if you ever need help for another situation like this, feel free to call.”

“I bet the consultant’s salary doesn’t hurt.” the official grumbled, making it abundantly clear that he was unaware of how good peoples’ hearing could get.

“Actually, I didn’t even sign anything other than the NDA until well after I’d started working here. I’m not going to insult your intelligence by pretending I don’t appreciate the money, but I’d say that taking someone off the street who is not only a serial killer, but a serial killer who targets people like me, is worth a hell of a lot more. Can you really put a price on one’s peace of mind?” Thoma asked, flashing the official a smirk.

Flushing, the man bustled out the door and once he was a bit further away, Sarai, Thoma and Habicht burst out laughing.

“So, what [Classes] do you two think you’re going to get when you evolve?” Thoma asked “[Second Coming of Sherlock Holmes] and [Stone Cold Badass]?”

Sarai burst out laughing for the second time, then shook his head “Those names are rather silly, don’t you think?”

Thoma put on an offended face at that and replied in a very clearly fake British high class accent “We just caught someone with the [Class] [Humanity’s Judgmental Blade of Damocles]. Dr. Sarai, as a man of science, how dare you accuse the [System] of having any sense of shame when it comes to naming its [Classes]!”

This time, it was Habicht’s turn to roar with laughter.

Chatting about topics considerably less heavy than the ones of the meeting they’d just left, passing the time until they were out of the building. The two others headed off towards their hotel while Habicht walked home.

His [Evidence Sense] suddenly activated, highlighting a goddamn bootprint on the façade of the precinct. That [Skill] tended to light of whenever something that could let him answer a question he’d been asking himself, be it the solution to a case or something as simple as ‘how the hell did that guy get across the city so dam quickly’.

There were no other bootprints visible anywhere within his current line of sight, but on the side of a chimney atop the building across the street from the precinct, there was a partial print, just beneath the top, the rain having washed away the rest.

That absolute madlad had rooftop hopped all across the city. Habicht started laughing, again, though it sounded a bit manic to even his own ears. The world had lost its fricking mind and now it was up to people like him to make sure it didn’t spiral into the abyss.