Men of the Law and Shield: Chapter 1 – Another Day on the Job

Chapter 1 – Another Day on the Job

“Hey, coppers. I got a bone to pick with you,” Max says as he reaches for something in his trench coat. “Which one of you gave me a three-hundred-dollar ticket for going five miles over the speed limit?”

“I did. Got a problem with that, or would you like another with a little bit of a beating on top?” I say while reaching for my controller on my desk.

“You know the answer to that. You better put up or shut up.”

Max takes out his controllers, and my friends and I start to play free-for-all on our favorite FPS game on the breakroom TV in the office.

During the match, we joke, and Max says crazy things like, “He’s reaching, he’s reaching! Stop resisting, stop resisting! Officer down, officer down!”

Coming to see what the fuss is about, Sergeant Kurtis Thomas enters the room, rolls his eyes, and says, “Don’t you have anything better to do than bother my boys, Detective Max Marlowe?”

“No, sir. It’s another quiet day in the field,” Max says.

“That’s funny, because I thought you were supposed to follow up on me about the thieves we’ve been after.”

“Ah. I got the file right here.”

Max reaches into his trench coat and hands Kurtis a folder. Looking through it, Kurtis says, “Alright, boys. We got work for you to do right here. You can play your games later.”

The four of us listen to our commanding officer, turn off the console, and take out and look at the files in the folder. Our squad of four is known as the Angel's Trumpet, and our symbol is a flower rendered in a tribal tattoo style, with a white center, four yellow petals, and a red shield around it. Detective Max Marlowe has brown hair and brown eyes, a slight goatee on his chin, and wears a long brown detective’s trench coat, a blue dress shirt, a yellow tie, black dress pants, and black shoes. Underneath his clothes, he has a thin layer of bulletproof body armor. In contrast, Sergeant Kurtis Thomas has black hair, dark green eyes, a chevron mustache, wears a helmet with a king poker card on it, and normal police body armor, a shirt, boots, and everything else. Corporal Cole Belmont has dark brown eyes, wears heavy police armor, a helmet with a shield on it to protect his face, and has the look of a grizzled veteran about him since he was a soldier in the Great War.

Meanwhile, I have brown hair, green eyes, and a normal police officer hat, and I wear the same sort of outfit and armor as Kurtis, but slightly less since I’m not wearing any armor on my shoulders, forearms, or shins. Each of us chose our outfit based on what’s available to our rank and our chosen role on the squad. Even though we have the same tools and gear available as the other squads, we look distinct because of the way we wear our uniforms plus the patch of our squad that we wear on the shoulder of our shirts.

“Alright, boys,” Kurtis says. “These thieves are the definition of petty and amateurs. They robbed places that recognized their voices, left fingerprints, and tried to sell their plunder as soon as they could in various public flea markets and parks as unregistered vendors. God bless the idiotic for making this job easy for us.”

“Shouldn’t we let the locals handle this? They’re who I got this information from and only prevented them from pursuing because you want to handle this,” Max says.

“And I still want to handle this. We’re the police, Max. Dealing with lawbreakers is our job, not theirs. Do you have any bigger fish to fry that we can go after?”

“No, sir.”

“Then we’ll deal with the jewel thieves, and not let some vigilantes or men of honor take care of them.”

“Those men of honor are the reason why we have so many new toys to play with,” Cole points out.

“I know the rumors about the new president and vice president being connected to or members of the mafia, or family, as they like to say, and don’t care about that. He won the election fair and square, has good morals, and is an honest man, unlike many politicians, including the men and women he was up against.”

“He also limited the powers of the tax agency,” I say.

“If he doesn’t do anything else good during the presidency, that one thing made it all worth it,” Kurtis continues. “Back on topic, with how things are now because of our new president, we need to earn our keep as a squad, and as your squad leader, I refuse to let other squads and men of honor hog all the glory, no matter how small it may be. Understood?”

“Yes, sir,” Cole, Max, and I say.

“Damn right I am. Officer Xander.”

“Yes, sir,” I say.

“You need more experience on the field, so I want you by my side on this. Max and Cole, go out to one of the other locations by yourselves and let us know if you see them.”

“Yes, sir,” Cole and Max say.

The squad moves out and gets into separate SUVs. At one of the flea markets, we ask around for the suspects and are immediately pointed toward them.

One of the civilians even says, “Get their asses, officers!”

Another says, “Lock’em up!”

A crowd follows us as we approach the three suspects, who look happy because of all the attention around them, and then lose their smiles the second they see us.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Kurtis says.

“…morning…officers…” one of the suspects mutters.

“I think you know why we’re here. We can do this the easy way or the hard way.”

The suspects suck in their lips, and I watch for the slightest hint of movement of them either going to run or reach for a hidden weapon. In a split second, the table and everything on it are flipped at us. Kurtis dodges and runs around the side to chase two of the suspects as if he knew it was coming. Meanwhile, the table hits me, and I fall.

“Get up and chase’em, newbie!” one of the people in the crowd says.

“I’m not a newbie,” I say under my breath, get up, and start sprinting toward the third suspect.

Kurtis and I use our squad radios to tell Cole and Max we're pursuing the suspects and to head down to where we are. Kurtis further radios the local stations to come to where we are to clean up the stolen goods, so that no one else takes them. The crowd clears as I chase the suspect I’m after, who continues to knock aside tables and throw stuff at me to slow me down, but this time, I react in time to not let anything slow me down.

“Stop running away, or I will tase you!” I say with my taser out and ready.

The suspect takes one look at me and starts to run faster. Wrong move. I pull the trigger of the taser, and the suspect goes down.

As I get on and start to cuff him, the suspect says, “Wait! You can have everything I stole! I was just stealing stuff to get by and take care of myself and my family!”

“Everyone says that,” I say.

“Come on, have a heart, man! I can’t go to jail! People are depending on me!”

“There are better ways to take care of your family without hurting others. How long you stay in jail will be decided in court. So far, you’re looking at five years minimum based on what I know.”

The suspect continues to struggle with me, so I threaten to tase him again. Not listening to me, I tase the suspect, much to the entertainment of the crowd, who cheer for me and mock him. Now cuffed, I go back to the police SUV and find Kurtis leading two suspects to the SUV. Max and Cole park their SUV as we’re meeting up and are disappointed that they missed the chase.

“Yeah, you can get these troublemakers into the SUV and take them in for processing. I’m not going to let them stink up my car,” Kurtis says.

Kurtis and I help Max and Cole get the suspects into their SUV, who all make excuses about taking care of their families, but we ignore them and slam the door in their face. Then, Kurtis and I watch Max and Cole drive away.

Kurtis pats my back and says, “You did well handling the one suspect by yourself, kid. You need to improve your reaction a bit, though. Anticipate their moves next time by thinking about what you would do in that situation.”

“Yes, sir,” I say.

Getting into our SUV, Kurtis continues talking to me, saying, “Is this what you expected being a cop would be, Xander?”

“Kind of. Why?”

“Most cops either want to live in an action movie, getting into high-speed car chases or intense shootouts, or just be lazy and collect tickets all day. What do you want to do in this job?”

“Serve God by doing whatever the job requires, both the mundane and the intense.”

“Good answer, Xander. It’s the same one I did when I first joined up, and it’s the same answer I have now. You may have a bright future ahead of you as an officer, if you do the same.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You don’t always need to say that when it’s just us casually talking.”

“Yes…”

Back at the station, Max and Cole tell us that our squad got a nice bonus for both getting the suspects and their stolen goods at the flea market, but another squad is getting the credit for collecting the rest of their stolen goods from the house the suspects kept their excess stock in.

“Ah, that’s fine. I only care that they got caught, is all,” Kurtis says.

“Yeah. With that done, can Xander, Cole, and I finish our game? I got a score to settle with them,” Max says.

“No,” Kurtis says with a long pause before continuing, “You have a score to settle with them and me. Don’t think I forgot the time you put a whoopee cushion under my car seat.”

The four of us laugh and continue the game we were playing, a nice rest from the bit of excitement we had from a simple day’s work.