You Have a Guest.(Jorge)

Jorge worked long days and as tiring as that was, he still loved his job. He loved knowing that he was out there actually helping people living happy and nice lives. There were times where he questioned what it was he was doing though. It seemed that everyday there was another problem nearly identical to the one from the day before. People never seemed to learn and always seemed to slip into new levels of foolishness, all in the name of trying to go against the law. But every day, Jorge knew that he would gladly face it again and again. He had to believe that eventually he would not be needed, that the world would eventually learn to take care of itself.

He had faith in that. But until then, he was still a cop.

So as he pulled up to his building, he detective gave a small sigh of relief. It was a good day, but he was still happy to be home. He felt like he had scarcely spent more than a couple hours in it every day. He wanted to be around his books, his crappy cough, even his mischief maker of a dog, Lizzie. Thankfully she was trained not to cause a mess when he was not around but lately he had been absent so much that she had taken to chewing up his favorite pair of shoes.

Climbing out of his ’67 Chevy Impala, the detective groaned as he stretched, cracked his back, and slammed the door closed. Dressed in his usual cheap blue suit, the detective adjusted his dark gray trench coat as he shoved his hands into his pockets, fishing for his keys. But once he stepped inside the building…something odd struck him.

He stopped in foyer, closing the door behind him as he turned and looked around the lobby of the apartment building. Something felt…off. He could not immediately pick up on what it was so he continued on to the stairs but with every step, he knew that something was different. His keys jingled briefly in his hands, but as they did he still found himself distracted by the notion of something being wrong, but what was it? He tilted his head as he looked around curiously.

It was only when he reached his floor that it finally snapped into place. Looking up, he spied the cheap sprinkler system and knew instantly that there was no water in that pipe. As a matter of fact…there was no water anywhere around him. That was certainly odd. Usually whenever he walked into the building he could feel the water running through every pipe, ever faucet on his floor, but…there was nothing this time. Was the water shut off for the whole building? Why?

Walking up to his front door, he spied that there was a note posted on it, one that was posted on the doors of other tenants who weren’t home either. “Broken Water Pipe. Will Be Fixed Tomorrow – Management.” There detective sighed as he rolled his eyes.

“Great,” he muttered. He was really looking forward to a shower too. Maybe he could stay with Gemma at the mansion tonight. Might be easier…

Shaking his head, he unlocked his front door.

“Alright, you little beast,” Jorge sighed as he called out to Lizzie. “What mess did you leave for me this time?” He muttered as he stepped into his apartment.

The second that Jorge stepped inside of his apartment, he knew that something was very wrong. He could not really put his finger on what it was, but he knew something was off. Again, he was sensing no water from inside his own apartment. And while he was already prepared for that, the problem was that he did not sense any water at all. There was none in the stockpile he usually kept in his fridge, the boxes of it he store under the cabinet, he could not even sense the small gathering of water he felt at the front of his door from Lizzie’s water bowl.

He never left Lizzie without water, and she never drank it all before he got home.

One foot inside the door and Jorge immediately drew his gun and aimed it around the dark apartment. It was only then that he heard the voice call out…

>> "None at all... She's been a doll."

Snapping in the direction of the voice, Jorge trained his gun directly at seated figure. A man sat there, one which any other day Jorge would have fired a warning shot and then arrested, but something about his clothing caused the detective to stop. First of all, it was not so much clothing, but a costume…one that he had seen before.

But what really made him see red…was that he had his dog by her collar. No one…touched his dog…

>> "Why don't you have a seat, detective? I want to have a little talk..."

No running water around, no still water around, the man had planned the perfect time to show up. He remembered him well from the incident with Firearm. This man was a psychotic who was willing to kill that criminal rather than let the police deal with him. In the detective’s mind, that made him a little bit of a wild card.

Gun still trained and steady, Jorge narrowed his eyes glared daggers back at the man.

"I have a different suggestion," he said with as much cold authority as he could muster, also glancing at the hammer in the man’s hand. "You let my dog go before I put a slug right between your -EXPLICATIVE DELETEVED--ing eyes? Cause I can assure you, I’m a goddamn surgeon with this gun."

Again…no one…held his dog hostage…

Gun trained, the detective looked ready to take down this intruder. He knew who he was. He remembered back to that day when that man nearly killed Firearm in cold blood. He fully believed that he was not going a damn thing wrong. And maybe he wasn’t. But the truth was that judging and taking lives was really none of this man’s business. He had no right to choose who lived and who died. No one made him the judge, jury and executioner. No one except probably the man’s self-delusion. Being a vigilante and fighting crime was one thing, running around killing criminals was quite another.

But as the detective stood there, gun raised up and watching this man petting his dog who was eager to run to his side, he truly felt the blood boiling. He wanted this man out of his house. Having Rhythm or Carrick break in to raid his fridge for food was one thing, but this psychopath was quite another.

Yet…the detective knew he was acting out. He needed to gain some kind of foothold in this situation and standing here pointing a gun at this man was not going to help. Especially not when he still had his dog in his grasp…

>> "Think, detective. You've seen it yourself. You could put that whole clip into my head and the worst it would give me is a head ache. You, on the other hand, wouldn't be so fortunate. Once again... Think. If I wanted you, or your dog dead, you would have come home to a dead dog, and died before you ever knew I was here."

Wouldn’t be so fortunate? Mentally the detective just grinned. You obviously don’t have all the facts either.

He said nothing of these assumptions and merely narrowed his eyes. The police detective in him told him not to lower his gun. This was an intruder in his home and he could not simply allow the man think he can simply break in, remove all elements of water and then walk out whenever he pleased, just for the sake of a chat. That was not how things in his world ran.

But mind whirled the second her saw Lizzie’s head drop back down onto the intruder’s lap. For a moment he thought that the bastard had poisoned his dog but before he flew into a flying rage, all he heard was her soft, deep rooted snoring. He had put his dog to sleep? He still growled at the thought but at least she wasn’t dead…

>> "Now, detective... Have a seat. We need to talk."

Jorge narrowed his eyes as he very, very slowly lowered his gun and once more replaced it into its holster. Carefully he walked up to a chair that sat across from the intruder and confirmed that Lizzie was indeed snoring. Standing behind the chair, Jorge glared at the man, obviously refusing to take a seat just now.

“What do you want?”

Jorge eyed his dog that slept soundly in the man’s lap. He knew that that was very unlike Lizzie. Lizzie picked up on his own emotions a lot. If he was tense, the dog should have been tense. But not so this time. No. The man must have done something to her. While he did not believe that Lizzie was dead, that did not make the situation any better. But the detective managed to keep his cool, at least for now. The sooner he could glean what it was that this man wanted, the sooner that he could get him out of his apartment.

So he asked.

And the man answered…

>> "Justice.”

Siiiiiiiigh. the Detective thought to himself. Was this going to become some lame type of monologue better suited for the comic books?

>> “You feel it, don't you?”

Yup. That’s exactly what this was going to turn into. Jorge mentally growled at the idea. Really? This man who just broke into his apartment, did everything possible to cut him off from his supply of water and this was the best and most interesting he could do? Monologue?

>> “That feeling that no matter how hard you work, nothing changes? You follow the rules, you put the criminals behind bars, they do their time, and they go out and do exactly what they were doing before. Even worse, there are criminals... Monsters out there who do horrible things, and go completely unpunished because of the burden of proof obtained by "fair" circumstance…I want all of that to end. I want the criminals to be afraid that if they do something wrong, I will be there. I will stop them. I will make them regret they ever took a step off the straight and narrow. That is what I want, detective…I also want to do what is right. I want to help."

Jorge shook his head. He would have railed against the man. People who really want to help don’t go around crushing people’s skulls in simply for the fact of doing it in some misguided name of justice. Judge obviously had his priorities seriously out of whack but Jorge knew that no matter what, there was no way this man was going to listen to reason. He was delusional and delusional people have accepted their realities as the single true one. No one could make them see otherwise.

But of course that did not mean that Jorge was not going to attempt to try. But just as he was about to open his mouth, suddenly the man produced a baggie from his pocket. In this baggie were several small items, pills. Great, so he was going to take drugs while he broke into his apartment? Fantastic.

>> "Do you know what those are?"

They were tossed to him and deftly Jorge snagged them out of the air. He arched a brow as he looked down at them. They seemed familiar. As he gently turned one of them over inside the bag, he suddenly saw why they were so familiar.

“M.” was all he grumbled in response. He shook his head turned his gaze up to the Judge. “We know about it. We’ve been cracking down as hard as we can on it but we can’t find the source.”

M-Drug. Take one and you become a god. At least that was the promo he heard on many of the lips of people who were busted because of it. The detective shook his head as he stared at the pills. He still could not believe that someone had been able to do it; somebody put evolution into pill form for regular humans to take. It was insane! Humans either hated them for being different, or hated them because they had powers they could never possess. Now the lines were crossing all the more and what was the purpose? To cause mayhem? For money?

Distastefully Jorge set the bag of pills down next to him on the sofa. Obviously he was going to have to take these in for evidence.

>> "What would you do if I told you I could give you the people responsible for this drug's distribution on a silver platter... And ask for nothing in return, provided you just don't get in my way."

He saw the man set his dog down and then begin to stand. Jorge did the same, but slowly so that the vigilante did not get spooked by a sudden movement. And as he did so, he listened. Then he groaned. If there was one thing that the detective did not like was making deals with less than reputable people. The Judge, from what he knew, was a cold-blooded man who killed people in the name of “justice”. Not really the detective’s cup of tea. It seemed that no matter how much he wanted to commit many of the same acts, at least he had the law to keep him wrangled in.

The Judge, on the other hand, is a loose cannon.

>> "I won't kill any of them. I only kill murderers, rapists, and those who would try to kill me. Of course... I wouldn't follow your protocols. Any evidence would have to be provided by you through lawful means. But I could tell you exactly where to look."

The detective arched a brow as he listened closely. The Judge won’t kill anyone unless it’s self-defense? What were the odds that he would actually keep up with such guideline?

>> "Could you accept the help of a vigilante if it meant justice could be done your way?"

Jorge eyed the man closely. He was not stupid. The detective knew that the MRC was running into a brick wall with the M-Drug situation. They were tackling a few dealers here and there but nothing that could lead them to the big fish that was supporting the whole operation. He wanted nothing more than to end the madness by catching whoever it was that was responsible for the whole thing but they were finding nothing. Maybe having someone else out there actually looking for the M-Drug that already worked outside of the law was a good thing.

But was that really Jorge’s decision to make?

He eyed the Judge closely.

“You hurt and killed a lot of people. I can’t stop the rest of the precincts from looking for you, Judge.” the detective said. “But…if you can find something about sources for the M-Drug, I’ll see what I can do about keeping the focus off of you.”