NOVGO.NET Chapter 82: The Beast Line
Chapter 82: The Beast Line
"Sign on the dotted line, Fin, and make sure you use the official blue ink."
The interim defense commissioner slid a thick parchment document across the steel folding desk inside the port authority command bunker.
"What are the precise boundaries of this appointment, commissioner?"
"You are appointed as Coastal Marshal for the outer maritime exclusion zone and adjacent industrial docks."
"Does this grant me command over regular municipal police squads?"
"It does not... your authority is strictly bounded to the harbor perimeter, contraband interception, and hot-pursuit raid operations."
"And my rank?"
"Your hunter rank remains certified Rank C, independent of the municipal commission."
"What about the Iron Dogs who held the perimeter at terminal twelve?"
"They are receiving official logistics commissions... supply transport, warehouse security, and perimeter escort duties."
"No combat rank inflation?"
"Strictly logistics, Fin, which comes with standard municipal hazard pay and legal indemnity for harbor patrols."
"Sefu will be pleased with the hazard pay, especially with twenty hungry veterans to feed."
"The city is grateful for the restraint your unit showed on Platform Tartarus, Marshal."
"We weren’t showing restraint, commissioner, we were saving children."
"Whatever you call it, the council is treating it as an unmitigated disaster for Malan’s faction."
The commissioner didn’t want twenty irregular mercenaries calling themselves certified combat hunters, which suited Sefu just fine.
[ Weekly Growth Tick 2 Active: Digestion II ]
[ Compounding Absorbed Core Pools... ]
[ Agility: +1 (127 → 128) ]
[ Overclock Multiplier Recalibrated: 384 ]
[ Endurance: +1 (119 → 120) ]
[ Strength: 119 | Sense: 84 | Pulse: 10 ]
[ EXP: 9,200,000 / 250,000,000 ]
A brief, warm ripple passed through the tendons behind Fin’s ankles and along the base of his spine, solidifying another fraction of absorbed power into permanent muscle memory.
"The terms are acceptable, commissioner."
Fin signed the parchment with a single, firm stroke, pushing the brass seal of the Coastal Marshal into the blue wax.
"Now, Marshal... you requested an interview with the prisoner in holding cell four."
"Gage."
"He has been demanding legal counsel since six this morning, claiming his confession was obtained under duress."
"Duress usually happens when you transport illegal bio-cages across municipal waters."
Ruby adjusted her shield strap as they stepped down the reinforced concrete stairwell into the sub-level detention block.
The air in the concrete corridor grew cold and damp, smelling of old lime and chemical disinfectant.
The heavy steel hatch of cell four unlatched with a pneumatic hiss, revealing Gage seated at a bolted aluminum table in handcuffs.
"Look who finally decided to visit me in the dungeon."
"Shut your mouth, Gage, you are five minutes away from being transferred to the federal penitentiary."
"You won’t transfer me, Fin... not until you know where Batch Five went."
"Batch Five is already flagged on Councilman Malan’s seized freight manifests."
"Those manifests are decoy logs, you idiot... Malan was just a bureaucratic front for the offshore buyers."
"Where are they holding the adult subjects?"
"Give me a signed guarantee for a supervised public hearing in front of the provincial magistrate, and I give you the real coordinates."
"Why do you care so much about a public magistrate?"
"Because in a closed military cell, Malan’s fixers can slip potassium into my water bottle and call it a heart failure!"
"Your crimes are already on record, Gage... fourteen counts of trafficking and unauthorized mana suppression."
"I am not asking for a pardon! I want a public hearing so the Chairman’s assassins cannot poison my soup in an isolation cell."
The terror in his eyes was raw, jagged, and unvarnished by pride.
"You get your supervised hearing, Gage... under full armed guard in open court."
"Swear it on your hunter license."
"I swear it as Coastal Marshal."
Gage let out a ragged, trembling breath, leaning his forehead against the cold aluminum table.
"District Six... the old locomotive turntable annex behind the abandoned textile mill."
"What is inside?"
"Three prototype guard hounds and a mobile containment van... holding the last adult subject from the shoreline sweeps."
"Why didn’t they ship her offshore with the children?"
"Her core refused to synchronize with the standard suppression collar... she kept burning out the limiter fuses."
"What species?"
"Beast-folk... feline strain, age twenty-three according to the intake paperwork."
"Is she alive?"
"She was alive when they loaded the van three hours ago, but the handlers were preparing to terminate the specimen if the raid alarm sounded."
"Ruby, get Maya on the radio right now."
Ruby clicked her headset dial, her knuckles white against the transmitter casing.
"Maya, can you ping the locomotive turntable annex in District Six?"
"Pinging the municipal power grid right now, Ruby... hold on."
A burst of static crackled over the line, followed by the rapid clatter of Maya’s mechanical keyboard keys.
"I have confirmed distress signatures from the sub-level maintenance tunnel beneath the turntable."
"Is the signal military or civilian?"
"Emergency beacon from an automated containment van, broadcasting an automated termination countdown on frequency seven."
"How much time is left on that countdown, Maya?"
"Twenty-eight minutes before the internal gas canisters vent into the holding cell."
"Send an Iron Dog medical transport team to the perimeter gate right now."
"Adult rescue team is already rolling, Fin, eight minutes out from District Six."
"Ruby, Nila, move out... we have twenty-eight minutes to break those doors."
"We won’t need twenty-eight, kid, let’s take the van."
The heavy tires of their armored transport squealed against the wet harbor asphalt as they tore out of the gate toward the industrial district.
"Maya, give us the route with the fewest municipal checkpoints."
"Take the canal bypass under the third avenue viaduct, Fin, the flood barriers are stuck open."
"How are the streets looking around the rail yards?"
"Deserted, heavy rain started five minutes ago, keeping the civilian scavengers off the tracks."
"Nila, check the radio battery in the glove compartment."
"Full charge, captain, locked to our private squad channel."
The grey smokestacks of District Six loomed against the overcast afternoon sky like broken teeth against the horizon.
"These textile yards have been abandoned since the second monster tide, Ruby."
"I remember when this district was full of cotton mills and weaving sheds, kid."
"And now it is just empty corrugated iron sheds and illegal bio-labs."
"Genesis always looks for places where the city stops paying attention to streetlights."
"Three guard hounds, Fin... same models as the ones on the platform?"
"Defective imported prototypes, heavy armor, fast lunges."
"Apex Gaze will interrupt one, my spear pins the second."
"And my foil takes the third behind the ear," Nila added, checking the tension on her main spring.
"Remember the rules when we breach that van."
"What rules?"
"We lower our weapons the second the hounds are down."
"Why?"
"She has been locked in a steel box with a burning collar for three days, Nila... she doesn’t know who we are."
"Ask before approaching, ask before touching the collar."
"Exactly, Ruby... we are not handlers, and we are not her masters."
"And if she lashes out?"
"We take the hit on our armor and we talk to her like a human being."
"Understood, captain, weapons down the moment the threat is neutralized."
"How much time is left on the termination clock, Maya?"
"Nineteen minutes, Fin... move fast."
The armored van slammed through the rusted chain-link gate of the locomotive yard, sliding to a halt in a cloud of crushed gravel.
Ahead, the black double doors of the turntable annex hung slightly ajar, leaking the foul stench of scorched electrical wires and hot ozone.
"Breach on three!"
"One... two... three!"