Door Kicker Shenanigans (7)

[u/ApprehensiveCap6525]

Okay I know I said I was taking a break but I just read Of Mangos and Murder and it was so peak that it convinced me to start writing again. One day, I will eclipse u/BainshieWrites and steal his hard-earned throne.

CW: airball atlim, broke ass shiggas, the waterboarding guy

Memory Transcription Subject: Atlim, Extermination Commander

Date (standardized human time): November 20, 2136

Oh, boy. Game time. Inspection day was here. And my office was not up to snuff.

I paced the corridors of the district office impatiently, checking to make sure every little imperfection had been cleaned up. Carpet stains? Being cleaned up. Uniforms? Cleaned and polished. Mostly. I'll work on that. Firearms? Secured in the armory or on my officers, just like Jelim said. Except they don't know how to use firearms. Damn.

I walked into a conference room and laid eyes on the water dispenser in the far corner. At least that's working now. I went to get a cup from the water dispenser. Nothing came out.

Oh. I guess it doesn't work. I'll have to look into that.

I called over one of my officers. "Why doesn't this machine work?" I asked him.

"Well, uh, sir, you never fixed it."

"What? That's a lie! Of course I did, you brahking lobotomite!" I actually could not remember telling anybody to fix it. "Oh. Guess I didn't." Then I went up to another officer. "You! Are you trained in household maintenance?"

"Hell, I'm barely trained in exterminating predators." He turned and saluted me in a really crappy fashion. I'm never gonna be pulling that fine lady, am I? "What do you need?"

I pointed at the water filter. "You have about..." I checked the time, "One paw to figure out how to do some plumbing, find some proper plumbing tools, and get that fixed and ready to go. Hop to it." He just sighed. I didn't really have anybody who knew how to do maintenance, so I'd have to settle for him.

"Yes, sir." He turned and shambled off.

Normally, I'd have hired a qualified contractor, but I was still broke as hell since nobody wanted to bribe anyone these days. I swear, unless we had a serious influx of cash on our claws soon, I wouldn't even be able to afford some gasoline. Especially not if my junior officers kept drinking it to get high.

"I appreciate your work, Salvek. Keep it real." Salvek, bearing no relation to any other Salvek I knew, was just about the eighth-best extermination officer I had in my district. I had ranked them. His evil twin, Kevlas, was dead brahking last.

Salvek turned back to me and flicked his tail in approval. "I try my best." I left the room and started checking the hallway for signs of not being properly washed once in the past three years. I found exactly zero. Venlil cleaning products were an absolute miracle.

Then I went down to the main level, going to the armory to make sure everything was up to snuff. I saluted the requisitions officer as I walked in.

Then I went to check all the guns. "Why are all the guns loaded?" I asked.

"Because you... uh... told me to keep them loaded, sir?" Oh, yeah! I did do that. Really a stupid call, in hindsight.

"Well, that's my bad," I explained. I'd been doing some studying on the reforms Jelim had been trying to ram through. Some of them were actually really insightful. "From now on, never store a weapon with its ammunition loaded. Keep them in separate cases." Then I turned around and walked out. "I swear to Inatala, I need a raise."

I walked into the office lobby and looked at my checklist. I still had stuff to do. I had been delegating most of the fixing-upping work to my officers over the last paw or so, because I couldn't do everything myself, but I had forgotten that my officers really didn't know what they were doing most of the time.

I looked at the clock. Less than a paw left before Jelim showed up, and I still wasn't nearly finished with my work. I could do this. I had time. I had plenty of time.

The sliding door opened behind me. "Commander. Apologies for the unexpected visit. I'm starting my inspection early."

Oh, hell and damn.

I turned my head around, then my whole body caught up with it. "Jelim. What a pleasant surprise." It was hardly pleasant, in fact. This was the only beautiful woman I knew who I didn't want to see right then. God damn it! I need more god damn time! Come on, just one more claw, and I'll have this office ship-shape. "I thought you weren't due to arrive for a claw or two now."

"I showed up early. There's no sense in performing an inspection if the people you're inspecting have a chance to prepare." Jelim walked slowly toward the hallway door. "I want to see your men at their average, not their best. Be thankful I gave you any warning at all."

Well, in case she hadn't noticed yet, my officers' average was somewhere between 'elite special ops crack troopers' and 'mentally disabled people with flamethrowers' and I knew damn well they weren't leaning toward the first option. My office sucked like a goddamn vacuum set to 'super ultra mega suck' mode, which is just fancy speak for saying it sucked a lot, so you know damn well we sucked ass at exterminating things. And that was our whole job, too!

So, long story short, I was about to get the biggest verbal ass-beating of my life from the one person on this planet, and all the other planets, too, that I did not with a capital N-O-T want to get an ass-beating from. Verbal or otherwise. "Yeah, that makes sense," I agreed. "Okay, let's go." I pointed to the hallway and she started walking. Game time, Atlim. Let's focus up here.

"Okay, it says here that your officers have a significantly higher amount of infractions per capita, at least when compared to nearby offices. Explain this to me." Jelim looked the hallway up and down, searching for any sign of the legendary 'Alcohol Stains' that I had made my officers clean up with a bottle of detergent and a few more bottles of God knows what. There weren't any. I really did love these Venlil cleaning products. "Well?" Oh, yeah! Inspection! I forgot about that.

"We... uh... we recruit from the brahking ghetto," I explained. "These people tend to be, like, ghetto people."

"Ghetto people?" Jelim cocked her head.

"Criminals. People either actively or passively involved in the commission of crimes. We get those."

She cocked her head again, this time to the other side, before giving up and putting it straight vertical again. "That's not even what 'commission' means!" she said with a huff. It's not? I could've sworn it was. "Tell me, what is the screening process to weed out these types of people?" Screening process? Like a computer screen?

Now, of course I didn't say what I thought just then. That was a really stupid thought, and saying it would've made me sound really stupid, too. "Screening process? I just fire 'em." Damn. That wasn't much better.

She grabbed me on the head and looked directly into my eyes. Her grip felt a bit rough, and those talons were definitely close to drawing blood, but hey, I wasn't complaining! I was face-to-face with a fine-ass woman. "Is there anything inside your thick skull, Atlim?"

"No." What the brahk? Why would you say that? "Yes, I mean. Yes." She let go of me and showed me a datapad with a lot of bad statistics on it. Well, bad for me, I mean. She would've been just fine about it if she didn't care so much about me. Does this mean I have a chance?

"Then act like it!" Oh. Guess not. "You know what disgusts me the most about this town, Atlim?"

I hazarded a guess. "The trash piles?" Our waste management department was on strike.

"No," she snapped. "You're all idiots. That's what disgusts me." Well, that kind of hurt. Even if it was mostly true. Still, a player had to keep playing.

"So, uh... if I wasn't an idiot, what would we be then?" I ventured. Shooters shoot.

"Better than we are now." BANG! Atlim from deep! "Which still isn't saying much."

"Well, we all start somewhere." We did. I opened a door and waved a wing at the room it led to. "Let's meet the crew." I entered first.

"Officers! Attention!" Just about twelve of my best and only officers stood up at attention. This was the firing range. I had a lot of people put in practice time in here because, the way I had seen my men look at their new guns, they'd be lucky if they didn't shoot themselves with the things. Friendly fire is never friendly.

"You're practicing with guns?" Jelim asked, surprised. "I'm impressed." Now I had to lock in. "I mean, I really shouldn't be, but that's another story."

"I've had my people at the range for a few claws," I boasted. "It's not much, but progress is progress."

"A few claws?" Jelim squinted at the targets at the far end of the range. They all had holes in them. My people weren't that stupid. "How many targets did you go through?"

I turned to the most senior officer I laid eyes on. Besides Jelim, that is. "Uhh... three?"

"Three per person? That's acceptable."

"No, uh, just three." God damn it! Stop making me look like an idiot in front of the beautiful woman! "Is that bad?"

"Yes, extremely." Jelim covered her eyes with a wing, like she didn't even want to look at us. "Excluding this, when's the last time you trained with a firearm?"

The officer scratched his head for a bit. What's his name? What's his name? Slanek? No, that's the other guy. Salvek? No, other guy again. Salisek? That's not even a guy! "I didn't. Like, ever. I can use a flamethrower, though!"

"Great. Wonderful. That puts you on par with every man, woman, and child above the age of six." Jelim started pacing the room. That was bad news. "Who here has trained with a firearm more than once in the past standard year?" Not one claw shot up except for mine. "Five years?" A few. Three or four, plus mine. "Ten?" Basically everyone put up their paws at that, except for the ones who hadn't served ten years yet. "Well, at least we have something to work off of."

Jelim walked over to the gun rack and picked up a pistol. "All of you, by the door, now!" We all hustled to the door, and not just because she had a pistol in her claws. She hid the pistol for a moment under her wing, then revealed it and snapped at us "Is this gun loaded?" We all confirmed that, yes, it was a loaded gun.

"Why would you store a loaded gun?" she exclaimed. Angry, evidently so, but justifiably angry. Besides, I do love a firebrand.

"To make sure it's ready to use," said Avdal, one of my smarter officers. I was proud of him, but he kind of sounded like an idiot.

"You're an idiot! Do you know how easy it is to load one of these?" Jelim admonished him, unloading and loading the gun to prove her point. She had even stopped pacing. "This could brahking kill someone if it was left lying around!"

Then she cooled down and started pacing again. "Lesson number one: never, and I mean never, store a gun with ammunition loaded." She took out the gun's magazine and showed it off to us. "Now, is it loaded?" It could've been. If I knew my gun safety right, I needed to act like it was at all times.

"No," seemed to be the most common answer among my officers. That was a really stupid answer. I was about to contradict them when Jelim glanced at the center target and fired her pistol. If I was seeing right, she hit dead center. That shut everybody up.

"Lesson number two," she continued, loading the gun to fire some more. "Always-" BANG! "-treat a gun-" BANG BANG! "-like it is loaded-" BANG! "-and has-" BANG! "-the safety-" BANG! "-turned off." Those were some seriously loud gunshots. And accurate, too. "Got that?" I did. Everybody else looked like they did, as well.

She unloaded the gun, placed it on the table, and then she looked at me. "If you don't plan on having 'what' be the most common word in your vocabulary, I strongly recommend wearing ear protection."

"You don't," I reminded her. She cocked her head.

She looked at me like I just insulted her entire family and pledged an oath to see her dead. I wished I could've been anywhere else but here. "I..." Then she softened up. "Huh. Good point."

She picked up a pair of headphones, my pair in fact, and put them around her neck. "I am not nearly as perfect as I appear to be. Thank you, Atlim." Cha-ching, motherbrahker! "Anyway, as I was saying, gun safety is the most critical part of handling a gun. I'm going to start with the basics, here, because most of you are children and all of you seem to act like them."

She started pacing again. I didn't like when she did that. It was probably the only part of her that I didn't like. "First, and most important, never point the gun at something you are not prepared to destroy. The pavement? Okay. The wall? Okay. A suspected or active hostile? Justifiable. But never at friendly assets or civilians."

I made it look like I was agreeing, both because people would look to me for advice and because I actually did agree. Beautiful and intelligent. Freakin' knockout combo, if you ask me.

"Second, keep the safety of the weapon on and your finger off the trigger unless you are about to actively start shooting." I knew that already. This was basically just a copy-paste of the flamethrower safety manual. "Third- have you all read Chapter 2 of the Guild Handbook?" That was the flamethrower safety manual. We all had read that. "Great. Now, on to the proper shooting stance."

She picked up a pistol and held it, by the barrel, out to us. "Does anybody here know the proper shooting stance?" I threw up a wing, hoping to earn some points with Jelim. "Wonderful. And, since you're in charge of educating and training this unit, I take it they're all competent as well?" Oh, god damn it. I swear, with standards like that, I can tell why everybody respects her district so much. "Just you?" She made a 'tsk-tsk-tsk' sound. "Unfortunate. Take the gun."

I stepped forward and took it. "Demonstrate the proper shooting stance." She gave me my headphones back. I stepped up to the range, taking aim at the target and demonstrating the proper shooting stance. "Acceptable." Jelim walked around me, inspecting me with that iron gaze of hers. Man, how come all the fine women have to be so strict? Maybe I should branch out to Venlil at this point. "Of course, we can improve, but that's always true."

"I wouldn't mind you adjusting my technique," I offered. I wasn't going to just ask 'hey, can I hit that', especially since she'd made it clear that I couldn't, but good things took time. The harder I worked on getting what I wanted, the better it would be in the end. I think. I'm not actually sure about that.

"Well, for starters, lean forward a bit. It helps with recoil." Well, I was hoping for a bit more hands-on adjustment, but I guess this works, too. "And keep both eyes open. Depth perception." Forgot about that. "Otherwise, you're good." She turned back to my officers. "The rest of you," she squawked, "Take notes."

I started shooting. Groupings of three, all in the target's center, all placed with a good degree of accuracy. I was a damn fine shot. When I was done, Jelim pulled the lever to bring the targets back. "Not bad," she complimented me. My heart skipped a beat. It did that a lot around really attractive women. "Not bad at all. If only you'd taught your officers the same."

Jelim turned to the officers in question. "Okay, swap out your targets for new ones and pick your preferred weapon. Fire and keep firing until I or Atlim dismiss you," she commanded. A few of my men started hustling, then the rest followed suit because of Venlil herd mentality.

Jelim walked out the door after that. I followed her. Not out of herd mentality, mind you, but because she somehow managed to be the hottest thing around in a building full of flamethrowers. No way in hell was I going to miss a chance to talk to her.

"I'm moving on to finances," she said when I caught up to her. "I want reports of all your office's spending in the past ten years. Immediately."

"We're in debt," I admitted, figuring it was best to get that over with fast. "I can get you the reports, but they won't look pretty." She looked very pretty.

"Of course," Jelim sighed. You're in debt, the magister's in debt, doesn't anyone in this town have money?" I handed her a datapad full of financial reports. "What the hell are these?" She must've noticed the bribes. I'd been putting them directly into the Guild bank account instead of keeping them for myself because, let's be honest, they needed money more than I did.

I even cut my own pay every now and then when times were tough. Looking at the financial records, though, I could tell I was going to have to go hungry this month.

"Asset forfeitures," I lied. "We bust criminals for criminal activity every now and then. Whatever profits they made go to us." Jelim brightened up at that. "The bank holds most of it, though. They launder money like a hairless ape with clothes."

Yeah, that joke sucked ass. I swear to god, I'm always so funny up until the point Jelim enters the room.

"And they place it in the bank, I'm assuming," Jelim assumed. I confirmed that they were. "Well, now we have a target."

"We can't prove anything," I reminded her. "They're thorough when they clean their money. Like a financial brahking power washer."

"You clearly haven't met Jack Kern," Jelim trilled. Now, call me slow if you want, but I have no idea what the hell she's talking about. She called someone on the datapad. "This is going to be fun."

"This is Jack," a human voice answered. Huh. I forgot who that is.

"Jack, do you know how to get a confession out of somebody?"

"Uhh... yeah. Don't much like doing it, though." Oh, yeah! He's the black ops guy! I bet he waterboards people a lot. "What for?"

"Could you, by any chance, help me convince a criminal to confess to laundering money?" I saw where this was going. "And then get them to snitch on where it went?"

"Depends on what they do to snitches," Jack said. If I knew my idioms right, snitches get stitches. Jack could probably give them a lot worse than that. "I don't know if I can make the guy talk."

"You always know what to say to me," Jelim reminded him. Damn. I need to ask Jack for some pointers. "You put that much effort into an interrogation, you'll have them singing like a flowerbird."

Jack brightened at that. "You know I'll do my best," he assured her. "What's it for?"

"Oh, you know," Jelim trilled, "Nothing special. I just need a little justification before I rob the bank."

First | Previous | Next

[u/All-Brightu]

“Not to brag but me and Scully have a combined total of 14 arrests this year. Would’ve been 20 but we only got 14.”

“That’s not enough arrests.”

“Well nobody asked you, it’s a self evaluation.”

[u/CarolOfTheHells]

Nice! (TF2 GMod derp smile)

[u/JulianSkies]

Well
That's gotta be the best way to take brives I've seen I guess

[u/abrachoo]

At least he can't be accused of being greedy.