Notes In The Margins

Post Patrol Report

Day: 27

Filed by: Iarumas

Vigilante’s [vigilantes*] out on the street: Iarumas, Compound.

Remote backup: Oriceye (she/her).

This night’s patrol was rather standard. Nothing out of the ordinary happened on patrol. A string of muggings across sectors two and three, though they seemed to be unrelated. Most muggers were detained and Oriceye called in a tip to have them taken to police lockup for the night. A small number escaped in the confusion, however.

Compound encountered some petty shoplifting in sector five. Perpetrator was armed with a single firearm and was selfadmitted [self-admitted*] to only be doing it for fun. Perpetrator was detained and Oriceye called in a tip to have him taken to police lockup for the night.

No major injuries were sustained by any party.

-Oriceye (she/her)

Post Patrol Report

Day: 29

Filed by: Magnetism

Me and Iarumas were out on the street last night, with the male Oriceye providing tech support. Nothing to report. (Then what’s the point of filling out a report?)

-Oriceye (He/Him)

Post Patrol Report

Day: 30

Filed by: Compound

I got a car chase!!!

Okay, okay, I can be calm about this. I can be calm. No I can’t, and you know what? Who cares?! I got a car chase!

Okay, okay, okay, so, early on in the night I was just doing my thing, right? Stopped a couple back-alley deals, bought a snack from this really great food truck called Burger-Maynia (note to self: have Oriceye track this place down, see if we can’t map its route to our patrol routes), and had just finished stopping some vandals from throwing bricks through a few windows when I heard them.

The sirens.

It was a car chase!!!

Apparently the driver of the getaway vehicle was a notorious bank robber from… some other state, I’m not sure, I wasn’t listening (Nebraska). But what I do know is the car came careening through sector 2 while I was right there. There were a couple cop cars chasing it, but they were far behind and weren’t going to catch up. Probably.

And it was a car chase!!!

I had to get involved. I couldn’t not! [could*]

I didn’t have a car of my own, but I didn’t need one. Thanks to my handy dandy grapple arrows, I was able to get up onto the rooftops. That let me give chase while being able to take shorter routes than the cars. Plus with Oriceye tracking its every move and Oriceye messing around with the traffic systems, they were able to tell me where to go to get there before the car did.

And that’s exactly what happened! I chased the car through sectors 2, 3, and five [5*] and was finally able to make my move. I wanted to jump down in front of the car and stop it from the front, but apparently that’s too dangerous or whatever it was Oriceye said.

ಠ_ಠ (Excuse me for not wanting you to die!)

So I had to get significantly less creative. And by that I mean I hid at the side of an empty road, waited for the car to drive past, and shot arrows into its tires. I know, I know. A significantly less exciting end to things. But you know what? I don’t care!

I had a car chase!!! First of many, hopefully! Or not? I probably shouldn’t hope for more crimes, shouldn’t I? Then again, illegal vigilantes, we don’t exactly have the moral high ground on that front.

And you know what?

I had a car chase!!!

Victory smoothies on me!

(I suppose it was pretty cool. In the end, all things considered.)

[Are you seriously encouraging him right now?]

(Are you saying you didn’t have at least some modicum of fun during all that? Redirecting traffic, coordinating civillians, it was like a massive board game.)

[Civilians*]

(Oh, that’s how you want to play it? Really?)

-Oriceye (she/her)

(I’m gonna call this a win.)

-Oriceye (He/Him)

[No.]

-Oriceye (she/her)

Post Patrol Audio Report

“This is Magnetism speaking, and today is day… uh… day… well, it’s Thursday, the seventh of-”

“Day thirty-six.”

“Day thirty-six. Why do we have to count days like that again?”

“In case someone gets their hands on our logs. This way they won’t know when any of this actually happened. Extra layer of encryption.”

“Beyond what Oriceye and I have already done.”

“Well said, Oriceye.”

“But all they’d have to do is figure out one and then… ugh, never mind. Day thirty-six. Today started off as normally as it could be. Iarumas and I were patrolling through sectors one through five with the male and female Oriceye both providing tech support.

“About an hour into patrol, we got word of some gang activity over in sector six. I argued that it was out of our patrol range for today, but Iarumas insisted we go check it out.”

“You were assigned sectors five, six, and seven.”

“When we arrived, we learned that the term ‘gang violence’ wasn’t entirely accurate. There were actually two gangs. One wore leather jackets with bears monogrammed across the back, and the other were wearing tiger print coats. I’m… pretty sure they weren’t made of real fur? I hope?”

“They better not have been!”

“I don’t know what they were fighting about. They didn’t say. Probably territory or money or some star-crossed lovers thing. What’s important is they were about to start fighting. It would’ve been small, only about six or seven people total. But it still would have been a fight. Iarumas jumped in before I could stop him.

“What followed next… I can only call it a free-for-all. The Bears and the Tigers started fighting each other, they were all attacking Iarumas, and Iarumas would defend himself against whoever got too close. A couple of them used guns, and the magnets on my gauntlets were able to pull the bullets away before they hit anyone, but… it wasn’t sustainable. And that was before one of the Bears pulled out a flamethrower.”

“I wouldn’t call it a flamethrower.”

“But it is though.”

“It’s really not.”

“Then why does it shoot flames?”

“A flameshooter is not a flamethrower! This thing is way too clunky!”

“You hear yourself, right?”

“It’s cooking spray and a lighter in a metal tube! I refuse to sully the good name of flamethrowers with this!”

“The first blast of flames got one of the Tigers in the arm. The Tigers retreated after that. Iarumas distracted the Bears to let them escape. Which only angered the Bear with the flamethrower. She turned it on Iarumas. I don’t know what he was planning, he held up his sword as if he could somehow redirect the flames or something instead of just running away.

“Fortunately, the flamethrower had a metal casing on it. I upped the power to my magnets and yanked the flamethrower out of the Bear’s hands. The casing warped and bent as the weapon was pulled up to me. It kinda exploded in my hands.”

“A semi-spontaneous combustion.”

“Right. Anyway, the gauntlets took the brunt of the combustion, but even so, now my hands are kinda… uh…”

“Burnt and crisped up like the saddest little rib at Uncle John’s barbecue?”

“Yes. That.

“Back at the base…

“Uh…

“Does Janice have a codename?”

“No. And she says the day we give her one is the day we can find someone else to put us back together. Hopefully a qualified physician, this time. I think she thinks Compound won’t be able to resist giving her a nickname.”

“Janice said my hands should be fine. I have to apply some extra strength burn ointment for a few weeks and I should be fine. Probably won’t even scar. Though she does recommend I not use my hands for anything for a couple days.”

“Already working on ways to help with that! Seriously, whoever designed the accessibility features on this laptop should be fired. Preferably out of a cannon. Because clearly they already think they work at a circus.”

“I’d appreciate that back in one piece before tomorrow. I have an essay I need to write. Dictate.”

“Yeah yeah, you’ll have a laptop in time.”

“Right. I’d recommend upgrading the Bears to a four star threat level. The Tigers should be fine to stay at three, but we should keep an eye on them at the very least.”

“We already intervene whenever we can. Not sure how we can keep a tighter eye on them. Unless you want someone to go undercover? Say… that idea has potential…”

“No. No, let’s not do that.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes. Yes, I’m sure.”

Post Patrol Report

Day: 38

Filed by: Iarumas

Vigilante’s [vigilantes*] out on the street: Iarumas, Compound.

Remote backup: Oriceye (she/her), Oriceye (he/him).

The Bears have gotten bolder. In the two days since Iarumas and Magnetism disrupted their dispute with the Tigers (see Audio Report: Day 36) there have been seven reported instances of them outside of their usual territory. Five of the reported instances have been in locations that have previously been reported as having activity from the Tigers (see Reports 7, 11, and 22).

These five locations are on what the Orica Fighers [Fighters*] believe to be the border between the Bears’ and the Tigers’ main territory. Despite that, they provide little tactical advantage. Two instances of storage space that would be unideal for either gang, and three stores. (They’re probably fronts. Might have to see if we can find anything in their finances.)

[If you find anything, could you redirect some of that money to us? We need more funding.]

(It’s not that easy.)

[That’s not a no.]

(It’s not a no.)

The remaining two location’s [locations*] have had no recorded sighting from either gang before this.

It’s likely that the Bears are intending to expand their territory.

Recommendation: increased patrols from the Orica Fighters in the five locations on the borders between territories, while arranging an increase in police presence near the two unclaimed areas. That will likely provide warning should the Bears move to seize any more territory surrounding that areas. If nothing else, it could act as a deterrent.

No major injuries were sustained by any party.

(Not to be rude, but is it just me, or are Iarumas’ reports just, super dull?)

[I know, right? Like, don’t get me wrong, they’re very thorough, and that recommendation is a great idea, but]

(But.)

[Yeah.]

[So where did we stand on that whole funding thing? We’re running low on funds, and we can’t keep embezzling from FertaTech forever. Someone’s bound to notice.]

(I know, I know. I’ll look into it. And, for the record, we’d be fine on funding if someone wasn’t wasting it all on new arrows every other day. Like, I get that some probably are gone for good, but can’t he at least try to reclaim them? Recycling is great for the planet.)

[Yes, but the bloodstains are so hard to clean.]

(That’s fair. So, what are you thinking for increased surveillance? Ethical or nah?)

[I can probably get into the traffic cameras, set up some kind of system. Can’t be facial recognition, we don’t know most of their faces, but advanced motion detection? Let us know if anything out of the ordinary happens?]

(Sure, that sounds good to me. I mean, immensely illegal, but morally good. Ish.)

[Meh. What’s a few more broken privacy laws? Who knows, maybe we’ll actually learn about something before it happens for once.]

(Think we should be worried about how blasé we are with those pesky little laws and legality and such?)

[Nah.]

(Good enough for me!)

[I mean, we’re tech support for vigilantes. Which are, you know, inherently illegal. I’d say we’re on the more moral side of our group, if anything.]

(Even gooder enough for me!)

(Anyway, I’ll look into those finances tomorrow. I have third period off, so I can take a crack at it.)

[Lucky. I have gym then.]

(I thought you liked gym? Getting to watch Iarumas pretend he’s some unathletic scrub who couldn’t bench anyone else in that room.)

[It’s entertaining, don’t get me wrong, but look at the time. It’s almost dawn. He’ll be too tired to really put in the effort to not put in any effort.]

(And you’ll be too tired to enjoy?)

[Meh. Sleep is for the weak.]

(Fair enough.)

[Yep.]

(By the way, we still on for dinner tomorrow?)

[Yep. Pick you up at seven?]

(It’s a date.)

[Well, yeah, obviously.]

(See you then.)

[See ya.]

-Oriceye (He/Him)

-Oriceye (she/her)

You two do know we can see all this, right?

-A = P(1 + r/n)^nt