Henry Barthow
"Vermillion!"
By the time Henry yelled out she had already well taken off. Consternated, he turned towards the policewoman who was driving them around. "I hope not," he said, bunching up his shoulders in a pose of discomfort. "Take me back to my car. I'm good enough to drive, and it doesn't look like we can afford to act superfluent right now."
Her partner grimaced, perhaps at the prospect that Henry was telling them to deal with Noel and whatever else was cropping up at their place rather than the task of chauffeuring him, but a snapping motion from her hand drove off his petulance like a slap.
"Right, sir," he said. She nodded in concordance. "We'll take care of this here once you're up."
Henry could only offer a grunt in retort.
Henry ignored the tingling under his skin, stinging his mind and quantum gears like an accusation below the nolmacy of his affected human expression. The light of those small suns wasn't getting any weaker as he drove towards the site of the incident. And neither were the reactions out in the streets; he noticed people being awed as people were wont to, but as he drove he also saw more and more congregate to or from the direction he was going. He was too focused on the road to look at their faces, but the demon recognized the inclination of their movement, the equation guiding their movements like a herd: anxiety and doubt. The notion of security that they used like a shield, cracking.
Mr.Tar
It made Henry Barthow completely livid.
Sariel
Fortunately for the burden of his own thoughts, it didn't take long for him to arrive at the ground zero. Even here, where thinning streams of smoke rose, people were gathering. Drawn by what the demon could only assume was fatalist curiosity, coming close but avoiding actual contact with the disaster, at least right now. The enforcers watching the area didn't need to push anyone away - already they were placing themselves at a detached distance, observers, but not participants.
Henry stopped his car brusquely, exited, and barreled past the safety markers with a flash of his badge, making crumbling sounds with his steps towards the center.
He turned his gaze over the line of bodybags he walked by, and a medic zipping up the last over the charred expression of a young recruit whose name he didn't know but whose face he recognized; then turned it away, forward. The detective stopped walking. He beheld a pit of molten slag and debris, work and dedication and altruism buried under cement and broken steel.
Henry's gears screeched inside his mind at the unfairness of it all, and his body emulated the sound with a threatening, booming yell from his lungs as he kicked a piece of litter next to him.
It went rolling with a metallic clang that sent a shock up Henry's spine, a second before he fell to his knees.
"GhraaAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!" He cried, clenching his fists and eyes from dull pain burning in his foot, and sharp frustration scratching his throat.
In the moment it took his outburst to quiet, a medic was running up to him with worry that wavered when she looked at him. Though Henry's face was red, his expression had become so subdued it might as well have been of stone. Cold and hard was the look that he gave her as she hesitantly asked if he was alright.
"I'm fine. Where are the rest of the cops?" Henry asked flatly. She shrank back a little.
"The 12th precinct detective, but - wait!"
He ignored her protest and walked back the enforcers, ever slightly dragging his left foot (he had a feeling it might have broken somewhere) to the car.
Henry felt less incensed than earlier, but his face was still colored by a myriad of emotions (that the demon barely had to make an effort to keep up) as he approached the 12th precinct. It was visibly busy, and there were more cars parked around and near the building, older and taller, than he was used to seeing around the now defunct 13th.
He had the luck of catching a patrol car just heading out, and he screeched down the lane to fit his old car right in that place. Quickly leaving, he strode up the steps with a muted limp, and opened the doors without a sound. It was even busier inside, but not so busy that the people at the front desk didn't have time to recognize his badge. They probably wanted him to sign something or to explain the current situation to him, but he was already past them and walking deeper into the building. He could hear it from his colleagues, he thought as he opened the doors to the classically arranged office area.
The rythmn in the room quieted momentarily, heads turning when Henry entered, only a few of which he could identify. From the back, he saw Yamaguchi throw him a nod. He had a strip of bandages wrapped around his head, and he wasn't the only officer who looked worse for the wear. Berndheart was leaning over a stack of papers with her hawkish gaze, holding a pen like a knife, but similarly had a medical patch over her hand. She looked more roughed up than that visible medical effort would indicate.
"Detective Barthow!" Henry heard a voice call out, prompting him to roll his eyes sligthly.
The always helpful junior detective of the 13th, Rick Sulliman, all but hopped next to him. His suit was wrinkly and had smudges of ash on it, but the enthusiastic young man of lanky build and dark skin faced him with a relieved smile. Henry responded curtly, "Hi, Ricky."
"Whew, we are glad to see you! We were worried about your expedition, but well, I guess you and Detective Saber had it the easiest!"
He groaned, not for the last time that day, and ignored the other man's strange look. "About that. Details, Ricky? I only have a rough gist and what I saw down there to go on, and it's driving me nuts."
He immediately looked more crestfallen than the demon had ever seen him, but straightened his face and soon began to explain.
It was hard to believe. Even after he'd seen that devastation with his own eyes, hearing the details from someone was a harsh experience. But the distressed faces of his colleagues and others around them betrayed the exasperation that was felt in the precinct.
That was perhaps the reason why he noticed the volumptuous redhead seated in a corner, attended to by a junior policeman and bemoaning about something, clearly shaken by the events she was describing. It could be that no one else noticed, but there was a strange discrepancy in the mood surrounding her. She stood out, which accentuated yet distracted from the, almost offputting to the detective, edges of her performance.
"Who's she?" He asked the younger cop.
Ricky stretched his neck in front of him to get a better look, then drew his head back with a murmur of realization and answered him curtly.
"Witness. She was in the proximities when... you know, happened, and she came forward looking very frightened, saying she had seen the possible culprits."
"Hmm." That was a convenient turn to things, and a courageous action for someone who was almost bawling right now when she was in the (arguably dubious, but some was better than none) safety of a precinct reinforced by a state of alarm and even more cops.
Even as he thought that, she continued her tale. "There was this suspicious man in dark, grim armor over there, and-and this lady in black in the middle of it all - it was awful."
"It's - It's okay miss, please calm down," was the reply of the officer dealing with her, awkwardly doing his best in soothing gestures without touching her.
"But, so many people are dead or injured and - I-I'm sorry, I came here to help and I'm just making myself a burden..."
"No, not at all... just take your time."
Very couragerous.
"The chief would probably like to hear from you!" Ricky said, pulling Henry out of his mullings.
He nodded. "She's swamped with paperwork I bet?"
"As heavy as an anvil on her effin' head, she said." He pointed to a door in the back. "She also had to clear everything with the Colonel here sooo."
Henry nodded, and left Ricky to walk up to the indicated office, ignoring his cry for good luck.
As he cracked open the door, the cop noticed she was currently occupied with cursing and yelling at someone through the phone. Wisely, he decided to wait for the storm to pass.
It took longer than he calculated, and wasn't ending.
"No, I don't know what it's about. Try asking your damn thralls, I'm too busy to be staring at the sky." And with that, she slammed the phone back on its stand, cutting off the call.
Henry chose this time to announce his presence. "Captain."
Captain Maria Rodriguez was an intimidating, stout, and generally no-nonsense superior of south-american descent, and generally not someone you wanted to interrupt. Luckily, she seemed to have too much on her mind to take umbrage at this time.
"Detective," she responded, looking up at him with unreadable scrutiny but plain weariness. "You look like you're in one piece."
"Fortunately."
She pushed a stack of papers slightly to the side and refocused her gaze on a new set with a frown. "You stink."
"Yeah, I was wading through literal shit."
She looked up at him again.
"I assumed you've been filled in?"
"Mostly."
"Good." And as the word was out of her lips, she dropped a high stack of papers in front of Henry, at the edge of her desk. "Help out with this."
Tar really felt like vocalizing a creak of frustration then.
After a late night filling paperwork and helping out with the completely unorganized hierarchy and consequences of such, Henry finally crashed down on his couch. From the corner of his eye he read the time on his wall clock and only felt mental exhaustion creeping in faster.
He didn't know for what reason laboring to this unearthly hour of the morning after a shitty day was allowed in the universe. Maybe it was a sadistic whim of the Machine. The thought was almost funny. Maybe because it didn't make sense, but his mind was muddled from effort and stress.
Better judgement told him that sending Saber a message about the situation with the police was a rational idea, but.... he could do that tomorrow.
Letting go of his consciousness, Henry rolled over for a much-needed sleep.
