Generation

Log 3: Checkmate

"You're not slick, Maurice!" yelled Brody, throwing a punch at the drug dealer.

The drug dealer dodged it and stomped on the ground, swing a punch at Brody's face, "Your stance is off."

The drug dealer then used his foot to kick the taser to Andrew's shoes, "Little help?"

Andrew grabbed his taser and began to tase the thugs that began surrounding them. It took a while for him to reload his taser as Laurence defended him. On the other side, the drug dealer was swirling past the thugs, knocking them on the back of their heads, and kicking them while they were down on the ground.

"That taser working out for you?" playfully asked the drug dealer.

"Give me a moment!" yelled Andrew in frustration, reloading the taser.

"What moment?"

When Andrew looked up, he noticed that the thugs were all on the ground, beat up or seizing. The drug dealer chuckled before pulling out a box of smokes, lighting up a cigarette.

"Hey," asked Andrew, coming up to the drug dealer, "What's your name?"

"Maurice Bennett," smiled the man, "At your service!"

Clunk!

Maurice's hands were cuffed.

"Hey!" yelled Maurice in confusion, "What's the big deal?"

"You're still a suspect," glared Andrew, his hands crossed, "No criminal gets mercy, even if they've saved me. Laurence check him."

Laurence scanned Maurice, but found nothing on him. He must've hidden his drugs back when they first met the thugs. Maurice smiled smugly.

"We'll just check where you live," scoffed Andrew.

"You'll need a warrant for that officer," chuckled Maurice.

"He's right, Andrew," whispered Laurence, "By the time we've got the warrant, I'm sure he'd have hidden the drugs by that time."

"We've got no choice but to follow this lead," replied Andrew.

"And as for the rest of these thugs?" asked Laurence.

"I'll call the office to pick them up. Assault on official police investigators is a big crime."

"You really like putting people behind bars."

"It's just justice. Not my fault that they're breaking the law. I'm just here to enforce it."

—

Just as Laurence predicted, Maurice's dusty old apartment was vacated out of any drugs. Andrew and Laurence inspected the place, but couldn't find anything.

"Laurence, use your Replay," said Andrew, inserting a Bit into Laurence's coin slot.

Laurence scanned the room and displayed a hologram. This was Replay: It allowed Laurence to create a hologram of the events that happened within a single area an hour before the present time.

Maurice was sitting in his couch, moving his hands in his pants as he scrolled through his phone.

"Hey officers.." glared Maurice, a cigarette in his mouth, "Don't you think this is an invasion of privacy?"

"Fast forward Laurence.." mumbled Andrew, covering his eyes with his hand.

Maurice opened the door which had two men in suits talking to him. Unfortunately, Replay doesn't replay words or conversations that existed an hour ago, so they couldn't tell what was being said, or who the men in suits were. The men grabbed Maurice by the collar, and seemed to look like they were threatening him. After a few minutes of talking, the men let go of Maurice, pushing him down to the ground and leaving. As this hologram was playing, Andrew looked at Maurice skeptically, who was looking away from the hologram.

As the hologram continued after a few minutes, Maurice began dusting around his apartment, double checking to see if he left any drugs inside. He went around the house, making sure every place was inspected. Upon checking, Laurence noticed that there was a secret compartment below the couch, which they hadn't checked earlier! Laurence turned off the hologram and nodded at Andrew. The two moved the couch and found the secret compartment, where they promptly opened it.

Nothing.

There was nothing in the compartment. However, Andrew saw something in the corner of his eye: a shiny purple fragment.

"Shit!" thought Maurice, his smug face growing fainter.

Andrew put some gloves on and picked up the piece of fragment, which was smaller than his thumbnail. He looked at from each side, not knowing what to make of it.

"What's this?" asked Andrew suspiciously.

"C-candy," smiled Maurice, shaking his head as he began to sweat buckets, "I can even eat it if you want me to prove so."

"Gross," said Laurence in disgust, "Don't eat compartment candy."

"Forensics could retrace what this thing is," said Andrew as he dropped the fragment into a small bag, "As for you, Mr. Maurice Bennett. You're coming with us to the office. We'd like to have a friendly conversation with you about your suspicious actions inside this house."

"Tsk," mumbled Maurice, "I gotta work on my procrastination game."

"Are we done here?" asked Laurence, wanting to go home.

"We're going back to the streets to patrol," answered Andrew, "Hopefully take down some people who seem to be troubling these streets."

"I know you're one of the best investigators in the department, but you take this job way too seriously. Give some time to spend with Laura."

"Yeah, you're being uptight about this job," commented Maurice, lighting up a cigarette.

"Since when did you join this conversation?" asked Andrew hazily, "My work ethic doesn't matter. As long as I make it home during my times off and spend time with Laura, I'm doing fine."

"Didn't you just arrest someone on your day off?" asked Laurence.

"...we don't talk about that."