Cop Craft – Dragnet Mirage Reloaded

No matter what she said, Matoba was not listening to Tilarna’s pleas to stop, and instead drove the car in front of the truck. He pulled the engine brake and suddenly slowed down, in order to prevent his tail lights from lighting up, The driver saw this and started driving erratically.

He tried to evade to the right, but Matoba blocked him.

He tried to evade to the left, but Matoba blocked him again.

Yet the truck kept insisting on evading him. His front wheels turned aggressively, and the truck instead drove on top of the median strip. Matoba thought it would keep driving and then crash into the cars passing through the other side of the road, but before he could do that, the truck started losing its balance and fell on its right side. The three to four tonne truck started spinning out of control. It slammed against the ground, its metal body being twisted and shattered into a million tiny pieces, as a cloud of dust kept rising from the site, and the lump of debris kept moving forward through the median strip.

Matoba made sure his hated enemy had met its fate, and then clenched his fist.

「YES!」

He quickly slowed down the Mini Cooper S, turned to the other side of the road, and dashed straight towards the site of the accident.

A seemingly endless stream of paper scraps flew high into the air, and started fluttering down under the blue sky. A lot of the contents of the truck’s back were still rattling around from the shock of the crash. They looked like… some kind of magazine or something?

「We’re catching the driver」 「Do as you please…」

Said Tilarna as she languidly sank down in the passenger seat, her eyes spinning nonstop.

「What, did you piss your pants? …!!」

She suddenly punched him. He didn’t even understand why.

「I don’t care anymore! Just get going already!!」

Shouted Tilarna pressing her lower torso with both her hands. Her eyes were teary and her face was completely red.

「… Don’t take your eyes off the car」

He stopped the car on the side of the road, turned off the engine and jumped out. He took out his gun from its holster, and headed straight to the truck lying in the middle of the median.

It was hard to see with the smoke coming out of the truck, and steam out of the radiator. The crash looked awful.

He pointed the barrel of the gun straight at it, and carefully approached the driver’s side. Always prepared to shoot if it came down to it. The glass was completely shattered, so he peeked into the car from the window. The driver’s seat was empty.

「?」

The passenger seat was empty as well. The seatbelts were unfastened, and deflated airbags were droopily hanging from the ceiling. He searched his surroundings, the other side of the truck and even its backside, but there was nobody there.

Few residential and commercial buildings were scattered on both sides of the road. A small crowd of curious onlookers had already gathered around, so it would be impossible to find the driver at this point.

「Fuck!!」

He got away.

Even after making such a ruckus, he still managed to get away from the scene so quickly. Maybe he was lucky, or extremely tenacious. But no matter the reason, Matoba still felt pissed off at the guy.

It was frustrating. Incredibly frustrating. Even more frustrating than having an entire investigation from three years fall flat on its face.

The sound of sirens kept getting closer. He stamped his feet in an indescribable frustration, as finally several patrol cars started arriving on the scene. He showed his badge at the patrol officers who instinctively started pointing their guns at him, and quickly identified himself.

「Detective Kei Matoba. From Vice」 「Hello. But man… once again with a flashy entrance, huh?」

One officer looked at the completely destroyed truck, and muttered quietly.

「Should we call an ambulance?」 「That won’t be necessary. The fucking driver managed to mix in with the crowd and run away. Though he probably would have had to go to the hospital if I had managed to get him」

Matoba still wasn’t feeling any closer to cooling off, and kept looking around desperately. The patrol cars allowed for circulation on the road once again, and traffic resumed by his side. One officer was standing right next to his battered Mini Cooper S, and talking about something with Tilarna, who was still sitting on the passenger seat. He was probably telling her that they were in the way and should probably move. He thought that maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they still waited for a couple of minutes.

At a first glance, the truck’s contents were… a large amount of documents, and scattered magazines. There was very little room to stand or walk around anyways. Matoba picked up a single magazine he had stepped on.

He thought it was some kind of fully colored gravure idol magazine, but in reality no matter where he looked, it was all full of pictures of naked women. And the pictures were all pretty hardcore. They weren’t censored. And you could see the real deal. There was a lot of roleplay, and a lot of variation as well. White, black, asian, and a neverending amount of Semanians.

There was plenty of what he would describe as sexy lingerie. And a lot of girls smiling awkwardly while posing in it, and older girls who looked as if they were presenting the viewer with the most valuable treasure on earth.

I actually prefer the more awkward and embarrassed types myself, Matoba thought.

The officer from earlier also picked up a few magazines, and gave a dark laugh after looking at them.

「Whoa, what’s this?!」 「Porno magazines… it’s all porn」

No matter which book they picked up, and no matter where they went, it was all porn. The tapestry of indecency spread around the accident like a flower field. There was even a large amount of Japanese hentai. There even was some extremely specific stuff particularly aimed at Japanese audiences… the type that made people lose all hope in humanity. There was all sorts of stuff in large quantities.

「I don’t get it」

Why did a truck full of porn start running away from the police in the middle of a regular questioning? Uncensored porn is completely legal in San Teresa, so looking at it as a detective from the Vice department, there was no reason to hide these books, there was nothing illegal about them. There was no underage porn either, and there were also no visible images of abuse or torture. It was all just regular, cheap porn.

Well, I’m sure we’ll understand if we research into this a little further.

In any case, let’s just move the car they’re telling us is in the way…

He thought as he cast a glance towards the spot he had stopped the car in, but he suddenly realized that the Mini Cooper S was gone.

「? Where is my car…?」 「I moved it. The officer kept bugging me about how it was in the way and whatnot」

Replied Tilarna, who at some point, somehow had gotten to his side and was just standing there. For some reason she looked proud of herself

「You moved it? You drove the car?」 「Yep. I secretly learned how to make them move a while ago. Just moving it somewhere else was surprisingly easier than I thought」 「Okay… that’s all fine and dandy but… where did you put it?」 「Right there… oh?」

The other side of the road… it was still closed, since the police cleanup hadn’t begun on that side yet, but the vacant Mini Cooper S was just sitting by itself in the middle of the road. She probably didn’t hand brake it, so the car had started moving from its initial location all on its own.

「Oh, it’s moving」 「Wait… hey…!」

Matoba turned pale, and almost started to run towards it, but right at that moment, a dumpster truck appeared out of nowhere, driving at a great speed. He honked loudly a few times, and then attempted to stop. He probably would not make it in time. The huge dumpster truck barely managed to slow down at all, and crashed straight into Matoba’s beloved car.

The Mini Cooper S was sent flying almost like a toy car, its windows and body completely shattered, and then finally, after painfully crashing around the road for around ten yards, it stopped.

Smoke started coming out of the engine, and generally out of the entire car, and gasoline started pouring over the road.

It was going to explode.

「Ah… Ah….!!!」

Matoba simply looked as his beloved car started burning, as he dropped to his knees in shock.

「Dorini machines tend to burn pretty often, huh? I’m a little surprised」

「Lately, a lot of porn has been getting stolen from local publishers and storage houses. That truck was probably part of the same gang. We’ve received reports from the theft department as well」

Said Bill Zimmer in his office, which was separated from the rest of the Vice department by a small glass pane.

Despite him saying it in a very calm and casual way, Braun’s face became stiff almost as if he was suffering some extreme nervous pain or something like that. His moustache that looked like a caterpillar started trembling slightly. Apparently his professional pride and an incorrigible anger were fighting an ardent battle inside his mind.

「So… basically. We’re up against a porn stealing gang?」

Said Matoba. After spending the past several hours beating himself in anger, he had finally managed to calm down. After having lost his beloved car, he had not been able to open his mouth at all from the shock until recently. On the other hand, Tilarna was simply standing next to him with a peaceful expression. Almost as if Matoba’s grief had been completely carried away by the wind.

「A porn stealing gang. That’s exactly it. And that’s fine. Well, it’s not fine, but it doesn’t really matter much either way… Hey, alien. Yeah, you're right there. Try to guess how I’m feeling right now」

Zimmer pointed a finger directly at Tilarna.

Tilarna raised her eyebrows, remained deep in thought for a little while, and then said

「You feel sick. So sick that you want to go to the hospital」 「I’m fucking pissed off!!」

His angry shouting resonated throughout the office, the glass pane vibrated slightly, and all the officers in the office stopped their activities to look straight at them.

「I’m so mad I could get violent! I’m so fucking mad that even if a group of Methodist charity volunteers came right to me office to ask me for money, I would spit on them and chase them off! No, I wouldn’t just spit them, I would fuck them all. I think I could even fuck every single soul who fell to hell with me. That’s how fucking mad I am right now! And do you know why, Jap?! It’s your fucking fault, Kei Matoba!」 「That’s racist language」 「Shut up, I fucking love Japan. My dad used to be a manager for a Toyota factory, so I will always be in debt with Japanese companies, and I have plenty of very close friends. My kid is a huge Pokemon fan, and my daughter really likes Princess Tenko. However, among all of the Japanese people scattered around the entire world, you are the only fucking Jap. A tiny, tiny fucking Jap. It’s obvious I’m going to be racist towards a guy like you. And if you don’t have the guts to commit harakiri, then fucking answer my question. Why do you think I’m shouting at you right now?!」 「No clue…」 「Let me tell you. Because, you bastard, you think you’re some sort of maverick cowboy! You start chasing cars as you please inside the city, and start getting involved in flashy accidents! It’s a fucking miracle that nobody died!」

Zimmer slammed his desk with both fists.