Within Dreams

Three

The wailing of the sirens had grown louder as they came closer and Eto awaited the knock on the door that inevitably followed. He got up and put the now sleeping infant back into her crib before walking back out into the hallway. Walking to the door he readied his wallet which flipped down to reveal both his license and his private investigators badge. The door opened and the two Aka-Zawa police officers stormed inside guns raised at him. "Hold it, don't move, show some identification!" Eto complied with their request, holding up his wallet. The officers looked it over and then ushered him back down the hall.

Eto sunk into the armchair and placed his hands above his head. One of the officers, a tall and brusque man with a tidy beard, saw the woman covered up and pressed his index and middle fingers to his temple right aboe the ear and spoke, "Dispatch, what's the ETA on paramedics we have a 10-54 at our current location." A moment passed before he nodded. "Copy that dispatch. Back up not requested at this time." The other officer, this one just as tall but of a slightly more slim build, still had his gun pointed at Eto.

"What were you doing here? How did this happen?"

He slowly raised his hands, signaling to the police as his translator did its duty, "I was being tailed from my apartment slash office after I took a job. One of my perpetrators is dead at the bottom of the elevator shaft in the lift his partner shot down. The partner is dead upstairs after I shot him. He had taken the woman here hostage after being wounded. I attempted to free, and succeeded but he proceeded to shoot and kill her anyways."

The officer looked Eto up and down. "Let me see your identification." He handed the officer his wallet. The officer opened it up and looked over his credentials and ID. "Eto Kaneko. Name sounds familiar." He returned the wallet and retrained his gun on Eto.

Eto sat calmly, and replied, "Yeah, I'm an ex-officer. Left the force after my accident." He motioned towards his robotic arm.

The officer lowered his gun. "That's right, I've seen your picture on the wall at HQ. You were injured in that wacko organization hostage bombing attempt right? Didn't they make give you some kind of hero award?"

Eto nodded, "They wanted to. I told the captain that I was done, and then promptly to go fuck himself when he tried to tell me I was being a pussy." The cop eyed him with a strange look on his face.

"Not a fan of the police anymore?"

With a sigh Eto replied, simply, "Nope."

The officer nodded slowly, before sitting down into another arm chair.

"So. You're being tailed for a job. What's the job?"

"I don't have to tell you that. Client confidentiality rights."

"Look man, I'm just trying to be friendly. Get all the information I can. Help you out."

"Don't really need your help, just need to now that baby in there's gonna be alright."

The officer stood back up, "Baby? Where?" Eto pointed down the hall. The officer motioned to his partner. "Hey, there's a kid in there. Call social would ya. Also this guys ex police." He jerked his thumb back towards Eto before leaning in and whispering something. The other officer began to eye Eto suspiciously again before coming over to sit down.

"Eto Kaneko. Yeah... I remember you. We never really met, crossed paths once or twice working a case here or there." He pulled a pack of smokes out of his left breast pocket and held it towards Eto. Eto shook his head, and then pulled out his own menthol pack. "Look, Eto, you're gonna have to give us something to go on here with this case of yours. Otherwise we have no solid indication you're really the good guy here."