[IC] Cog in the Machine

[World Traveler]

John cursed at his car as the screen began to flash a warning sign due to his current speed. He removed a sidearam from the bag sitting in the passenger seat and fired twice at the screen causing it to explode and quickly turn dark. The car responded to his act of pushing further down on the gas peddle as he continued to blow past cars on the highway. The pain in his head was still pulsing, but it hadn't reached his eyes just yet. A small amount of blood was dripping from his nose, none of this mattered as he urged the car to go faster again. He had less then 15 minutes to make it completely across town to his partners apartment.

The vision that brought on such a frantic reaction from F166 had been one of the most vivid he had ever experienced. The understanding of visions was always a grey area for science. Instead of seeing things like they happen on a TV show the visions have different viewpoints ranging from a person to an object. This time it was a weird combination of both. The vision had been through the barrel of a gun. A gun pointed directly at his partner and fired. He had heard a conversation before this about why she was being killed. The words kept ringing in his head.

"You and your fancy partner had been a thorn in our side for long enough."

The single sentence held a single massive bomb. The fact that Josephine had a partner, let alone one in the precog program had been kept a secret from the rest of the police station and organised crime unit. That had been the main reason he had only met his partner face to face once. The distance had been easy for the two to handle as John had been in the same situation during his time in the war and Josephine was fine due to her distain for precogs. The partnership was completely built on faults, but held together through the raw talent of Josephine. At times she wouldn't listen to John who rolled with the punches; however, over the last several weeks he had become more and more upset when she did this. Tonight was one of those times.

I told her to always have her contact on her! He thought with another swear. He wished the car needed to be shot again, but couldn't validate the waste of ammo. The contact was his only encrypted communication tool he could use to reach his partner. They used them during missions, but in the military it is normal for both partners to always have them with them, some even implanting them into their ear so as to never be without their partner. This was a completely unique skill of Josephine's that John disliked very much. She had the ability to make him think fondly of his time in the military.

He tossed the contact back into the bag as his attempt to contact her again went unsuccessfully. He finally turned off the highway and four minutes later was parked in the alley behind Josephine's apartment building. Using his police access key he unlocked the fire escape quick access elevator and went up to the fiftieth floor. Before the door even opened and he could access the window he pointed his weapon forward and fired a single bullet. The gun fired and sent the bullet through the open window and entered the chest of the man standing in the bedroom. He dropped as soon as he heard the gunshot. John had little time for error as he moved through the window and stood in the bedroom. Right on cue Josephine entered the room with her weapon drawn.

"Josephine we need to leave now." John said as he moved to the side and waved for her to enter the fire escape elevator.

[Nika]

It had been the longest day. But then again, it had always been that way for the last fifteen years.

October 12th.

She knew she'd become increasingly difficult recently - much to John's disdain. It had put an obvious strain on their working relationship, the usually accommodating F166's patience was noticeably stretched tighter during the last few weeks. October did that to her, reminded her of the one moment she'd lost her best friend forever. F166 would never understand, would never accept it for an excuse. So she kept her reasons to herself, kept hammering out business and meting out justice as efficiently as she could in her preoccupied state.

Yeah, it had been the longest day. Piles of half-attempted paperwork and unfilled forms were left on her desk. Captain McBride had noticed the obvious slump in her otherwise stellar track record and had sent her home early. For the first time in the four years she'd been on the beat, she'd actually taken the chance to finish up and rest. Head resting on the thick glass of the apartment building elevator, Josephine stared out into the sea of lights in the endless night. Don't think about it. Don't think about it. It's done. It's over. Let it go. She repeated the mantra to herself over and over, attempting to wash away the memories that lingered around her.

On autopilot, Josephine practically dragged herself over to the door to her apartment on the fiftieth floor. 5027 glinted back at her in sensible stainless-steel numbers. In robotic fashion, she opened the door and flung her pack into a darkened patch of floor. She sighed audibly, took a sweeping glance over the obscured shapes and removed her customized earpiece. John would probably have scolded her for removing her contact, but she didn't care. This wasn't the time. Not tonight. In one swift movement, she tossed the small item in the general direction of her police pack and slowly made her way over to the vintage sound system her father had lovingly tended when he was still alive. It played something called a "CD", something that could only be bought rarely at antique stores. She didn't know if she could muster the courage tonight. The pause seemed infinite.

Her finger hovered over the triangular symbol to start the machine, but something made her pause. She'd spent enough time on the force to recognize the smell of blood when it presented itself. Instinctively, the hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle in anticipation as she padded over to the kitchen. Man, no - corpse. Wrapped entirely in substance. Appears to be plastic. Apartment now illuminated. Close inspection shows item positioning askew. The sound of a single gunshot ripped through the silence and broke her train of thought. Years of strict training and discipline whirred into action. Her hands pulled the firearm by her left hip as a booted right foot broke down her bedroom door with a well-placed kick.

On the floor was a Caucasian male, six foot, clad in black. But that wasn't what made her freeze. The aim of her gun shifted to the form behind the collapsed figure. She'd seen him once before, but once was enough. "What the HELL is happening, John?" Her voice came out a lot steadier than she'd thought it would. Good. She would need the composure; because if F166 had taken the trouble to make his way to her, then she was in deep shit indeed.

[World Traveler]

"These men were here to kill you." John said in a stiff tone. He walked around the bed and shot the man once more for good measure. He then reached into his back pocket and handed his partner four extra clips for her sidearm. "You will need these." The total ammo count of the four clips was roughly 65 bullets. Considering a police officer normally carries anywhere from 15 to 20 bullets with them this was no small number of deadly objects to be handing. "I wasn't exaggerating when i said we need to leave now." John bent down next to the twice shot criminal and opened his jacket which showed he was wearing a thermal jacket. He then grabbed the mans arms and after closing the bedroom door propped the body against it and locked the door.

"In thirty-two seconds five men with enough weapons to take over a small country will breach into your apartment and kill us. I plan for them to be too late." John grabbed Josephine's upper arm and brought her to the fire escape. Though normally it is difficult to unlock the emergency lock that stopped people from carelessly using the fire elevator as a quick shortcut down to the street John found all the tools needed to get down in the bedroom. He pulled his weapon up and fired once more into the unknown corpse. The bullet struck the thermal jackets regulator box causing the entire vest to activate. Within a half second the magnesium lining burst into flames burning at nearly 2000 degrees. The door and floor caught fire almost just as quickly.

Warning Warning Fire Detected Proceed to Nearest Emergency Exit Warning Warning

The automatic voice continued to repeat; however, John had already gotten into the elevator with Josephine. The doors closed and the elevator began to decent. John knew that a slew of curse words about how he had just condemned everything in the apartment to a fiery death from his partner. He also knew that interrupting her before she asked the question was an excellent way to get her even more upset. Still he didn't care to waste time and also wasn't a fan of letting her use him as a verbal and literal punching bag. "The first thing they were going to do was use their own thermal grenade to clear the living room. No matter had I started the fire or not everything in your apartment was already gone."

The elevator door opened as the reached the alley. Other elevators were beginning to descend as the entire building was beginning to be evacuated. "Two will come from the right corner in five seconds. Watch out for the people running out of their elevator in seven seconds the gunfire will cause them to panic and run towards us." John said as he started making his way towards the drivers side of the vehicle he had earlier stolen and shot. On cue two heavily armed people came around the corner in a slightly crouched motion. They hadn't identified John or Josephine as they began to quickly move along the wall. John got into the car and waited for Josephine.

[Nika]

Josephine had no idea what had happened. She'd started the evening rather typically and now, her apartment was in flames, a neighbourhood block was in panic and F166 was half-dragging her through hallways and elevators towards a getaway car. As John had made his way to the driver's side, Josephine pulled away from him and froze, leaving a metre of unoccupied space between them. It was all a bit much. People were frantic and armed men had begun to swarm the building. Unmoving, she locked eyes with her partner. "No, John. We can't just leave these people here. We can't. My duty is to protect and serve. Those assholes mean business and if something happens... If-". Her words failed her. The sheer lack of emotion from F166 chilled her right to the bone. Whatever his business, it was enough to risk the safety of the good people of Verdant Gardens Apartments.

Without a word, she begrudgingly slid into the passenger's side and slipped the ammo she'd been holding into her pockets before slamming the door shut in audible frustration. Everything that could've been useful had been in her pack, which was now incinerated along with the rest of her belongings. An angry grunt managed to claw its way out of her. This was nothing new for the two of them. Their time together had been brief, but John's visions and directions had yet to fail her. She utterly hated it, hated that she had to ignore every instinct from every twitching fibre in her being and follow F166's guidance blindly to success. Blind trust, hah. She had seen what faith in the precrime system could get you - a knife to the throat and a traumatized child, that's what. She grunted again as the engined roared to life and the two of them were speeding down the highway to god-knows-where. She threw a sideways glare at her partner.

"You owe me an explanation, John. Hell, you don't owe it to me, you owe it to the terrified people of my apartment building." She paused and made a point to uncross the arms that had folded over her chest defensively, instinctively, the moment she sat down. His intensity frightened her. "I'm not psychic like you, but I know if you could've gone to the Chief, you would've. Tell me why we're breaking protocol tonight." Training clicked on again; it was her speciality. Bullet holes in the dashboard, the smell of burnt rubber. The dried brown stain beneath his nostril, the white of knuckles peeking behind the skin of his fingers that gripped the steering wheel with such vigour, she thought he might rip it clean off the apparatus. Whatever this was, it was bigger than the both of them.

Shadowed scenery whipped past the windows as John kept his gaze steadily forward, offering her nothing but contemplative silence. She understood. Or, at least, she liked to think that she understood. It probably made no sense to him either; the interpretation of visions was iffy at best. Regardless of his reasons and in spite of her belligerence, she was quietly grateful he was there when he was. Without a word, she licked her thumb and wiped off a little of the blood stain on his cheek before settling back into her seat, eyes forward. At least now she wasn't completely useless.

[World Traveler]

There were five blocks away and could see the massive billow of smoke coming from the now raging fire in the cars rear view mirror before john realised he wasn't breathing regularly.. He welcomed the sirens of several fire trucks as they sped towards the fire 45 seconds. On time. He thought as he felt himself for the first time start to feel in control of the night. He knew this was a false feeling. Like finding your balance on a boat. Your feet may have found their footing, but all it took was a small nudge and the boat was flipped and you were in the water. He was swimming while looking for a life boat with Josephine. The only problem was the waters of this city were icy cold and had sharks that were looking for blood.

The emphasis his partner added to the word psychic was deliberate and understandable. He knew the stigma of being a precog wasn't so much the fear that they knew more than others. It was a underlining feeling of not understanding. It was something that could not be fully explained, but was already completely enveloping the world and its daily life. It scared F166 and his fellow precogs almost as much as it did the general public. Especially since it was already causing such a wide and divisive separation between the two groups.

John could see the different ways he could go about explaining the situation. He saw some of them ending in him getting punched. He shook those visions off in favor of some of the less painful options. He knew being straight with Josephine was the best, but he also didn't like saying what he had to out loud. The weight of it had such an impact on him that he felt like he had to keep it too himself. He felt that, but he knew he couldn't. The faith an agent had in their precog was often seen as a one way street. That the agent followed the precog. Because of this many see the precog as the alpha in the partnership, but this couldn't be further from the truth. During the war F166 had learned to not only trust his partners to do what was best, but to know what was best. The precog is the navigator. The agent is the driver.

Positive they were not being followed John pulled the car over to the side of the street and turned the car off. He faced Josephine for the first time since he had entered the car and let out a very stressed sigh. "The police are no longer an option for assistance. I believe they were the ones who were in your apartment." John said in a false calm. The theory was somewhat new, but after seeing the equipment they were armed with led him to it. While not normal law enforcement issued the weapons were strikingly similar to a shipment the port authority had confiscated from a smuggling operation over two months ago. "I believe there is someone within the police force who is compromised. Someone within the precog program... On my side of the department. In a vision I heard a conversation that lead me to that. They were discussing a plan to kill you. They had information that was impossible without assistance from a precog."

The weight of what those words meant to John and those like him were unfathomable. He didn't need to see the future to know it would cause a witch hunt that would make Salem look like a game of duck duck goose. Everyone had always been scared of precogs using their powers for anything other than the good of humanity and indeed there were multiple cases of it happening. These were kept secret from all but the highest orders in the government. John only knew about them because several were from the same training program as he was. The tail end of the war had been particularly bad for his kind.