Catching Smoke- An Agent Myre Story

By Stephen Goralski


Location: Desbin city Beta District; Alpha Centauri star system. 0020hrs. Harlak 22nd, 2120.


Arug Mensk was perplexed. He sat in his third-story office in Old Desbin City, staring at a map of the planet. His eyes darted around the map to different pictures which were tacked to the map and connected by red thread. His reptilian, iguane-like head bobbed back and forth as he looked at the different locations. These pictures and string were targets -government informants or deserters or both. Arug was a secretive man, and didn't like people walking around with his secrets without his guidance. he rose from his chair, his long, whiplike tail dully thumping against the floor as he did so, and walked over to the center of the old wooden floor of his office, where a human lay in a puddle of his own blood. He was breathing heavily, and his eyes were wide with terror as the blood leaked from his chest. A steel knife was embedded in the man's heart, and blood gushed from the wound like a fire hose. Arug began to circle the dying human, making a "tsk tsk" sound as he did so.

"Though you could escape, eh Ferris?" Arug said in a cold, unforgiving tone. The man began to hyperventilate, and Arug lost his patience. With one fluid motion, Arug lept into the air and grabbed the dying man by the throat "Well did you punk?!" he exclaimed. The man began to shake with fear, and his mouth filled with blood. He went to mumble something, but the blood in his throat made it sound like a hot tub turned on high. Slowly but surely, the man drowned in his own blood, and went still, his eyes eternally frozen in terror. Arug withdrew the knife from the dead man's chest, and punched a hidden panel in the brick wall, causing the panel to slide back and a hidden weapons cache to be revealed. Arug cleaned the knife on the dead man's clothes, put it in the cache, and closed it. Several moments later, he rung a bell and several more henchmen came into the room, carrying crime scene cleaning supplies. They went to work, mopping up the blood and dousing the floor in chemicals to get rid of the stains and kill the smell. Soon, only the body remained. Arug paced around it a moment, wondering what to do with it. He certainly had to stay incognito, or the Desbin Police Force would hunt him down. So, he decided to discreetly get rid of the body to assure that he wouldn't get caught.

"Take Mr.Ferris here to the docks and dump him in!" Arug shouted to the two henchmen. They saluted, said "yes sir!" and carried the body out of the room.

"Excellent." Arug walked over to the map behind his desk, and in a swift motion stabbed a six-inch knife deep into the picture of James Ferris. he followed one of the red lines to another human; a relative of Ferris' who wen by the name Richard King. Arug pulled out a red sharpie from his desk, and circled the picture.

"You're next!" he seethed.

Location: Desbin City Alpha district; Alpha Centauri star system. 0530 hours. Harlak 22nd, 2120

Agent Myre's alarm clock began to vociferously ring at 5:30 AM. He let out a moan of anguish, having been awoken from a rather enjoyable dream about flying through space. He rolled over, still half asleep, and banged the alarm on the top, hitting the snooze button. He laid there for several more moments, trying desperately to fall back to sleep. Eventually, he came to grips that he wasn't falling back asleep, and sat up in his cozy form-fitting memory foam bed. Myre looked around his small, rather dark bedroom of his medium-sized contemporary condominium. He rose from his bed and slipped into a pair of slippers, his ape-like opposable feet slipping in easily into them. He walked out of his room and into his living/dining room and into his small, stainless steel kitchen, where he prepared himself two fried eggs and a piece of raisin bread toast. One glass of orange juice later and Myre groggily sat down at his marble breakfast bar and turned on the TV to the morning news.

Myre finished his breakfast rather hurriedly, and stepped into the bathroom where he took a quick shower, being careful to brush his azure body hair out to prevent tangles. After showering and brushing his teeth, Myre pulled a dry-cleaned black suit and tie out of his cluttered closet. After realizing that he was running late, Myre jumped up in the air like a cartoon character and threw the suit on in a blinding hurry, slipped into his shoes, and ran out the door, grabbing his Model 006 plasma pistol from off of the wall next to his front door as he did so. He checked his watch; 6:30. He needed to be at work in a half hour or his boss would kick his furry blue rear end out the door. Myre took the building's elevator to the bottom floor and walked out into the parking lot, where he got on his white and blue motorcycle and sped off to work. It wasn't much of a vehicle; resembling a dirt bike more than a motorbike, but fas fast, efficient, and great for maneuvering through early-morning traffic. So were police sirens, so Myre turned his on, and the blue panels on the motorcycle lit up brightly and began to make a raving siren sounds, which cleared the road of vehicles. High above the traffic flew your occasional flying carriage, which escorted the important and wealthy of the world to their jobs. Myre looked up at the flying cars and scoffed. They didn't have to go through traffic, now did they?

After a 25 minute drive, Myre arrived in front of the Desbinian Office of Criminal Investigation's (abbreviated DOCI) main headquarters in the Alpha district of Desbin City. He turned his police lights off and walked in the front door, where he flashed the security guard his ID and was permitted past the bland beige lobby. The stainless steel doors to the back offices opened and Myre walked down the hallway uninhibited. Before checking in and going to his office, he stopped in the bathroom a moment to check his reflection. Myre was a very self-centered man, and liked to check his reflection several times a day. His secretary Resha had gotten him a mirror for his office, but it was shattered by a bullet after a terrorist broke into the offices to free an accomplice of his. So, Myre had to deal with making trips to the bathroom to check his reflection. He believed himself to be a dashing Lumien; with perfectly-colored blue hair which was never sticking up or tangled, a rather large creased forehead, Italian-style skin tone, and dark violet eyes which set off his hair color. Overall, he found himself very attractive, and his face well-defined and angular, as if it were chiseled from out of rock. After satisfying himself with his reflection, Myre walked leisurely to the elevator, which he took to the twentieth floor of the skyscraper, greeting co-workers as he went. He bossed a do-nothing intern around into running across the street and getting him a coffee, and arrived at his office at the end of the main hall to find a tall, golden-furred catlike creature sitting at his desk, wearing a suit similar to his.

"Morning Resha." he said through a loud yawn "May I inquire as to why you are sitting at my desk?" Resha made a growling noise, got up, and strutted across the room like a fashion model in her tight-fitting suit.

"Konyaxi has been looking for you Myre." She growled in what appeared to resemble a light English accent "Third murder this week. Same event. Stab wound through the heart; found in the river; no evidence. Body's still in Forensics. Here's a briefing". Resha handed Myre a professional-looking several-page report on the murder, and then stalked out of the room.

"Um, you didn't answer my question!" Myre yelled after her. he didn't expect an answer, and didn't get one, so he sat at his wooden desk and read through the briefing. About halfway through, the intern brought Myre his coffee, and he took a sip.

"Good work kid. Just saved my life!" Myre chuckled "Now go be a dear and tell Cimex I'll meet him at seven thirty, capiche?" The intern nodded and scurried out of the room. Myre kicked back in his black leather office chair and surveyed his office. It was a neat, orderly, and luxurious space, painted a contemporary beige with a mahogany ceiling. Most of the office was taken up by Myre's large glass-topped mahogany desk and his maze of grey filing cabinets, which acted as his own private evidence locker. On the desk was a LED screen computer with a laser keyboard and a simple grey computer mouse which sat on a brown orthopedic mousepad which provided wrist support to prevent Carpal Tunnel. The wall behind Myre's desk was adorned with awards, as well as a large picture of his father and another of his first police squad. Across from his desk were two comfortable plastic chairs which sat in front of a huge bay window that provided a beautiful view of the known universe's largest and cleanest city.

After reading the report, Myre scanned it into his computer and printed two copies of it which he placed into the "current cases" category of his filing cabinets. He then grabbed a tablet computer from one of the drawers of his desk for notes, and walked down the hall to Konyaxi's office, a coffee in one hand and a tablet in the other. He finished the strong black coffee before he go to the office, and it noticeably picked him up. He threw the coffee cup in a silver waste reciprocal and knocked on the large black glass doors to Konyaxi's office. The door was one-way bulletproof glass, so if Konyaxi was in there, he'd know and Myre wouldn't. The doors auto-unlocked ominously, and Myre walked into the office of his worst-favorite boss; Konyaxi Onag. Konyaxi was the exact opposite of Myre; he was fat, unatheletic, and lazy. He was a medium-sized Lumien with a gut the size of an oil tanker. His fur was an ugly mustard yellow, partially because of his bad habit of smoking tobacco. Konyaxi greeted Myre with a bulldog-like grunt, and pruned his mustard yellow pencil mustache like an evil villain as Myre took a seat in one of the two spinning office chair's in front of Konyaxi's large, gold-plated desk. The head of the Investigation department had a habit of making one feel small in his presence, and the massive, domineering desk gave off that belittling effect.

"I hope that you read through my briefing." Konyaxi said as he rose from the desk and paced past his wall of military medals and awards. "because I will not be repeating them. Konyaxi punctuated this by blowing out a puff of smoke from his pipe, polluting the air with his filthy habit.

"Sir, I would appreciate it if you did not do that here." Myre said as politely as he could "Asthma".

"Did I ask your opinion, Officer Forchem?" Konyaxi barked through another puff of putrid smoke.

"No sir."

"That's what I thought Agent." Konyaxi was feeling rather generous today, however, so he emptied the pipe and sat it on his desk. "So, have you any ideas so to who the killer might be?"

"No sir." Myre said, frowning "They're obviously linked, having identical locations, wounds, and no apparent evidence. This was obviously a serial killer".

"I know that Myre." Konyaxi said, unimpressed "I don't need redundancy, I need results!"

"If you would let me finish please, sir." Myre said, prompting Konyaxi to sit down in his black office chair and listen. "The people murdered were not of the same species, ruling our genocidal possibilities, but all three showed alarmingly high adrenaline levels in autopsy. They suffered for a long period of time, and were carried to the river when they were dumped in, as revealed by the pebbles of asphalt stuck in Subject Two's skull. Also, two of the three killed, Jack Ferris and Karranva Maltic, were government informants for the White Claw. All three also had several run-ins with the law, and Jack Ferris spent five years in Human jail". Konyaxi sat up straight in his seat and lurched forward over his desk, making himself look even more imposing.

"So this is a cleanup job, you think?" Konyaxi inquired.

"Exactly sir. The White Claw is cleaning up. Now we just have to find out which of them". Konyaxi froze a moment, and then smiled a yellowed grin

"That's why we pay you the big bucks, officer Myre!" Konyaxi belted out, enthused "I'm assigning you to this case. Find out which mobster is holding the mop and take him away. Got it?"

"Yes sir! I will not let you down". Myre bowed at the waist to his boss and left the room. As soon as the doors closed and he got around the corner, he jumped high into the air like a happy little schoolgirl and cried out "crushed it! Yeah!"

okay,i know who you are,4th Maxx!your pal Violet(aka Jadar/flash) here.I recognized who you were by the writing styie.pleasetell me how to get my own story line.Celltervex [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]

Okay...a few things:

a) I can't say I know a person named Violet.

b) I can't say that I know a person named Violet who has read anything I've written.

c) I'd never click that link in a million years.

d) You don't really need to get a storyline anywhere. You just...come up with one. This section is for people who write stories. I don't know what you mean by storyline. Just think of a story you want to write and put it here. You know, just write. Make your own characters and stuff up and all of that and then think of a plot.

Stephen, I think this may be one of my proof readers. I sent her an email to verify. I gave her a link to Rollplex a few months ago because she wanted to practice her writing tecnique. We have similar writing styles so she may have confused us as I told her to contact me by looking for the username God-mod.

EDIT: Violet, I know you're new to computers, but do you know how to Copy Paste? That is a non-functioning email address, if you could please select your email, right click and select the copy option from the drop down menu bar, then go back to this page, right click again and select the paste option that would be most helpful.

If not, please try and contact me at [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.].