In the Beginning There Was Dark
By Barbara Mooney


10. Excessive descriptive paragraphs.

        Ghetto Computers was a red-brown smear of broken glass, circuitry, and
feline parts.  Jason and Felina gagged at the sight of it when they entered.
The stench was unbelievable, a cross between death and excrement, and they
could see both flowing in rivers down the wall, across the floor.
        "This is disgusting," said Jason, and he saw that Felina was about to
vomit.  He pulled her hair back from her face and averted his eyes.
        When she was done Jason snapped his fingers for a towel, and an ever-
prepared E-kat was over in seconds.  Felina wiped the corners of her mouth,
nodded a thank you to the E-kat, and stood up straight, ready to do her job.
Jason watched her with a raised eyebrow as she went to each technician,
demanding their reports.
        He himself donned a breathing mask and wading boots before entering.
        Derek had done a number on this place.
        The walls were streaked black from the explosions of each and every
stolen PC.  Jason ran his eyes through the charred remnants and detected the
bullet that had caused the destruction.  He pulled on a rubber glove and
extracted it with a specialized pair of tweezers, putting it into a plastic
bag.  He handed the bag to the E-kat to be tagged and filed.
        Then suddenly it occurred to him.  If this crime was related to the
one before, then it stood to reason that the place might be rigged to blow!
        "Has anyone checked the basement?" he demanded.
        "No one can stand it," replied a technician, who was scraping a mat of
scalp fur from the wall.  "The stink is so bad down there.  But we ran a check
for a gas leak and it ran negative."
        "Why, what happened?" Felina demanded.  She made her way through the
pools of matter and towards the basement door.  Spatters arced their way
across it, leaving a gentle parabola of umber dots.  Felina reached a paw down
to the knob, grasping it.
        "Don't go down there - don't open that!" yelped the E-kat.
        Felina turned the knob and pushed open the door.  A foul stench rose
up from the belly of the building.
        "YUCK!" Felina gasped, and pulled the door shut again.  "That's
disgusting!"
        An E-kat tossed her a gas mask.
        "Will this help?" he asked.
        She pulled it on over her head.  It pinched around the ears.
        "Sure," she said, through the muffle of the filter.  She gestured for
Jason to join her.
        The two Enforcers stood before the door to the basement.  Felina's paw
was still on the round brass knob.  Slowly and with resignation she turned it,
pushing the door ever so slightly ajar.  The rest of the kats in the room
began to gag, but the masks kept back the stench.
        Jason switched on his mask's head lamp.  The light shone down the
stairs and into a field of blackness.  The pair squinted against the dark as
they made their way cautiously down the stairs, the junior officer in the
lead.  The steps creaked beneath their feet.  Some E-kats donned gas masks and
crowded the door, watching them intently as they entered the place where but
one kat had gone before - and lived.
        "Creepy," Jason commented, looking about.
        The walls were cement, blue gray, cracked.  Cobwebs hung from the
ceiling like a dead hippie's beaded curtain, caked with dust and the cocoon-
graves of the spiders' victims.  The light reflected dull from them, dispersed
and dimmed, the lumens lowered.  Jason stepped lower, down another stair.  He
swung his head to the opposite direction - and saw everything he needed to
know.
        Behind the thick sheets of spider-silk and the crumbling layer of
concrete stood a wall of bricks, and beyond that, the sewer line, ruptured,
spilling its vileness into the room.  A rat, caught in the unexpected lack of
darkness, stood up on its hind legs, squealed, and scurried away.  Jason
stepped down off the last step and into the sepia septic sludge.
        "No, don't!" Felina snapped as he stepped, and he whirled around to
her, only to catch her off guard.  The temporary blindness she experienced
caused her to misstep and fall face-forward to the ground.  She caught herself
elbow-deep in the stuff.
        "JASON!" she screamed, and two E-Kats clambered down the stairs to
help her.  They lifted her to her feet and tweezered off her long gloves, to
which, fortunately, the slime-reach had been confined.
        "Never look at someone with your headlamp on - and don't go walking in
that crud!"
        Jason, this time, kept his face to the wall.  He walked towards the
chasmic opening and looked around at it, finally climbing inside of it.
        "Where are you going?" Felina demanded, pulling on another pair of
rubber gloves.  Her words were jumbled.
        "What?" Jason called back, but his voice was lost in the tunnel.
        He looked both ways like a child at an intersection, wondering which
way whoever had gone.  It was impossible to tell.  Either way led to an
unending labyrinth of tunnels, any of which this monster could have taken - or
even still be in.  Hopeless.  He turned to leave the tunnel, examining the
blast scars on the exit.  This was a thick wall.  Whatever had been used on it
had possessed some advanced ballistic technology.  He didn't know where to get
that sort of weapon outside of the Enforcer factories.  His suspicions and
intuition began to formulate an idea.
        Felina was wading towards him.  He didn't see her as he was looking at
the walls.  Power outlets - where were they?  Not submerged, as this was a
basement - and the fuse box - it was just as he suspected.
        He saw her and she held her arm up to shield her eyes.
        "Who lived down here?" he asked.
        "What?"
        "I said, 'Who lived down here?'"
        "What?!"
        Jason tore off the mask in frustration.
        "Someone lived down here," he pronounced.  Then the stench hit him,
and he nearly collapsed.  Felina caught him by the arm and dragged him to the
stairs, where the E-kats helped the two up to the main floor, whose disgusting
disarray had been diminished by that of the sewer-basement.  The spattered
door was shut behind them, and Jason gasped for air, only to be graced by the
stink of death.  He staggered outside.
        Felina was close behind him as he slumped down gagging on the stoop
amid a throng of flash-bulb armed photojournalists.
        "You all right?" she demanded as he nodded, still catching his breath.
        He gulped.  "I think... somekat... was making weapons down there."
        "Weapons?!" shrieked a reporter, and the crowd began to roar.
        An Enforcer she-kat with light hair blew on her whistle.  "Back off!"
she shouted, and Felina dragged Jason back into the building by his ear.
        Inside, she pushed a gas mask under his nose and strapped it around
his head, then threw a switch on his unit.
        "Com link," she explained.  "Old model."
        "Ah," said Jason, but before he could express his relief, she pushed
him backwards toward the wall.
        "You just leaked your 'insight' to the press!" she roared.
        "But it's true!" he protested.  "Honest!"
        "That doesn't matter - it's in the papers now."
        "That may be just what we want."
        Felina was getting sick of him, and rapidly.  She had difficulty
dealing with those whose minds worked differently from hers, especially when
their mode of expression dealt only in ambiguities.
        "Felina, listen.  I think that we're dealing with more than one creep
in this investigation.  I think this was their base.  Look at it!  I mean,
stacks and stacks of circuitry - and access to stolen technology.  *Something*
blew a pretty decent sized hole in the wall down there, but it's far gone now.
Our toms are on the run."
        "Listen to you?  I mean, listen to you!  Your ideas are crazy!"
        "We may be dealing with a mole."
        Felina stopped.
        "A mole."
        "Right.  Look, the guy at the retirement home - he had the access code
for the lock, and for the video surveillance.  Or did he?  I mean, did he just
have the Enforcer override?"
        "An alarm would have gone off."
        "A silent alarm - and if the crime took place after hours, which it
did, there's no guarantee that the kat on duty was awake to see it."
        Felina glowered.
        "So let's say we check the records, and there was a silent alarm that
did, in fact, go off.  What evidence do we have that he was involved here?  I
still don't see any correlation."
        "That is left to Intel.  What do we have on this place?  Does anybody
have the file?  Besides, think about it.  How many stealth killers do we have
in this city?  Come on, let's wrap this thing up.  There are some questions
I'd like your uncle to answer."
        Felina looked at Jason, studying him.  He seemed completely convinced
that he was right.  His brow was furrowed and his eyes serious.  She put her
paw on his shoulder.
        "Hey, you're the one who specialized in investigation," she said, and
he smiled broadly behind the mask.
        "All right, everybody, wrap up," he announced.  "But just to be sure,
I want somebody down in the basement.  That's right.  Filter that stuff out,
I don't care how you do it, but if you find ANYTHING down there, I want it on
my desk within the hour!"
        "On your desk?"
        Jason winked.
        "It'll find me."
        The pair walked out the door.

                                *       *       *

        Calico Briggs could feel the tension in the air as she sat across the
desk from her would-be boss, the mayor of MegaKat City.  His eyes shifted,
somewhat furtively, back and forth from her to the kat seated beside her.
David Cole was his name.  He was dressed head-to-toe in designer clothes, a
fact which betrayed his moneyed status.  His parents were the wealthiest kats
in the entire city, and had paid his way through law school.  In fact they had
also paid for his three houses, four cars, and, although Mayor Manx didn't
want to admit it, this interview.
        David was certainly handsome, that was certain.  His looks mirrored
his purchased credentials.  His fur was neatly trimmed, his eyes a cool blue,
and his jaw finely chiseled.  One could tell that, aside from the mansions and
beach houses of the MegaKat elite, the gym was his favorite place to while
away the hours.
        In his blue silk suit he defined the term "she-kat's tom."  Absolutely
nothing about him was out of place; he had no errant strands of hair or
unsightly creases at his elbows.  His tie was worn perfectly straight and the
collar of his shirt was starched stiff.
        And yet... there was something about him which greatly unnerved the
aging mayor.  He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but he had narrowed it
down to one of three possibilities.  The first was the extreme confidence
with which he had come to this, the final interview.  The kat must have felt
that he had already secured the nomination.
        The second possibility, which sprang quite readily to mind, was the
way Mr. Cole liked to flaunt his money.  He often arrived to work in a jaguar
convertible - a different color every day.  When the mayor's limousine was
late, Mr. Cole whipped out his cellular phone and before the mayor had time to
tell him that that wouldn't be necessary, a sleek black helicopter landed in
front of them.  Inside, the mayor found that the floor slid away to reveal a
Jacuzzi, and that in the center, there was a holographic television to watch
on the trip.  Not only that, but Mr. Cole had even procured wine of a most
excellent vintage, and served it to him in a crystal goblet.  While that had
been a pleasant experience, to be sure, the mayor couldn't help but think that
in some way, this kat had no understanding of the value of a dollar or a hard
day's work.
        And the third possibility, and the most likely, was that Mr. Cole
never stopped smiling.  He never did.  Not even when he corrected the
thousandth kat as to the proper way to address him - "Your lordship, Mr. David
Cole".  Not even when the paparazzi swooped down in hanggliders to snap his
picture, or veered in front of his limousines to get him to stop for some
candid shots.  Never.
        So here he sat, his lordship, Mr. David Cole, arms folded, knees
together, slightly relaxed in the mauve plush chair provided for him.  He
looked over at Callie with a trace of a twinkle in his eye.  He had always had
a weakness for her, the one girl he could never have.  It didn't matter to him
that she wasn't "rich."  No, he would show her the time of her life anyway, up
in the air on one of his luxury jets - or, if she preferred, on the ocean on
the pleasure deck of one of his yachts.
        Callie herself was feeling just as confident.  The mayor had taken
quite a shine to her.  The times she had accompanied him on trips had been
some of the most enjoyable moments in Manx's life, although not in Callie's.
She was obviously as capable as Rogers had been.  On top of that, she was
certainly a good deal more attractive.
        The mayor liked Callie.  She was attentive and confident, as well as
aesthetically pleasing.  Her practice speeches were remarkable.  Unlike David
Cole, she was willing to take over Manx's appointments without even a day's
notice - and she still managed to look good when she showed up to work at
4:30 in the morning so that the mayor might have his speech written before he
teed off.
        This morning, Callie was wearing blue, just as her opponent was.  Hers
was a soft chiffon dress with matching pumps.  The dress had a bateau neckline
that emphasized the delicate beauty of her neck and shoulders.  The hem was at
her ankles, and the drape of the dress allowed it to dip farther in the back.
She wore her hair down - another attribute of her of which Manx was especially
fond.  He was a sucker for blondes.
        Oh, but such was the mayor's dilemma!  If he chose David Cole as his
deputy mayor, the rich Cole family might contribute to his campaign.  He would
be guaranteed to win elections until he died of old age or Alzheimer's or
whatnot.  And he would have private jets, private yachts, private mansions all
to himself - tax-free gifts that he would die to have.  Perhaps even... his
own "galf carse"!  And yet - he would have to do his work himself.  He would
have to write his speeches himself, draw up the budget himself, approve
ordinances himself, attend events himself - all of this was beyond horrible
and certainly not what he had in mind.
        And yet, if he did not choose David Cole, he would lose the family's
support.  He would not have the private luxuries or the bahaman vacations.  He
would not have the expensive electoral campaign, replete with television spots
and 50 foot billboards.  But he would have Callie.
        She was an asset in myriad ways.  Lovely, devoted, brilliant, and a
hundred times more talented than Cole.  She was the logical choice, but it was
a sacrifice play.  He couldn't form the words to state his decision.  He
couldn't even tell what it actually was.
        "Mayor Manx?" Callie asked at length.  "Are you all right?"
        The mayor sighed and looked at her weakly.
        "Of course he's all right, he's just gathering his strength.  Why,
he's as fit as a fiddle, aren't you, old boy?" laughed Cole.
        The mayor looked over to Cole.
        "I give up.  I can't make this decis-iann," he said.
        Cole laughed.
        "It's simple, chum.  But then, you must be exhausted.  Perhaps lunch
will find you feeling more loquacious - my treat," he offered, rising.
        "Mr. Cole -" Callie began, but he silenced her with a gesture, and
offered her a paw out of the chair.  She took it and rose, but he refused to
release her.  The mayor stood up from his chair, watching them.
        "Miss Briggs," Cole purred, and bent to kiss her paw.  Her eyes
narrowed as she watched his lips lower - and then the phone rang.
        She turned away and withdrew her paw.  His lips missed their target as
she lifted the receiver to her ear.
        "Mayor's office, Calico Briggs speaking... urgent?  Surely... an hour?
make that two... the mayor is busy..."
        Cole had recovered and was now leaning over her, his face next to hers
as she spoke into the phone.
        "You said Commander Feral is in a meeting now, and that will take him
an hour.  Then he can wait another.  The mayor - ...yes, that is what I said.
we will see you then."
        Cole had taken the end of Callie's tail and was holding it up beneath
his nose.  When she looked at him he smiled and kissed it.  She set down the
receiver abruptly.
        "Mr. Cole."  She pulled her tail out of his grip.  "We have two hours
for lunch, and then we are to travel to Enforcer headquarters.  The mayor has
been requested to meet with the commander regarding the matter of the recent
murders."
        "Oh, how ghastly!  And after eating - surely, those rough fellows have
no consideration."
        Callie turned to the mayor, ignoring Cole's remark.
        "Shall we, Mayor Manx?"
        The mayor smiled.
        "Certainlay, Cal-lay."
        Callie and the mayor left the room, with Cole following close behind,
cel phone in hand, making a reservation for lunch that only he could ever have
obtained - or so he had become very fond of saying.