Cop Craft – Dragnet Mirage Reloaded

Just from looking at the first few pages, Tilarna’s eyes opened wide and her shoulders shrunk. She probably wouldn’t feel that shocked even after looking at a completely destroyed and minced corpse. Matoba felt a bizarre sense of guilt, but he then thought that maybe it was still an important experience to have.

This was Vice after all. They didn’t only deal with drugs and weapons. They also dealt with pornography and investigated around it. Even though uncensored pornography was perfectly legal, underage performers and downright violent or abusive acts were completely prohibited. Matoba even once had to binge watch 300 porn DVDs for three days straight to fully understand what was and wasn’t illegal. The first thirty minutes were pretty fun and exciting, but the remaining sixty hours were pure hell. It was almost like a miracle that he didn’t go completely insane after watching so many neverending sex scenes nonstop. For a second he thought he never wanted to see any female genitals ever again in his entire life. To the point where for the following week he couldn’t even see the steamed buns or seashells sold at his local Japanese restaurant, because he suddenly felt an uncontrollable urge to vomit.

… Speaking of which, if he had become permanently impotent after that, would it count as a work-related injury?

Tilarna started trembling all over

「So— something this… lewd and disgraceful… I can’t believe it. You people truly are barbarians. You’re absolutely insane.」 「Whatever. Your dad and mom did it as well when they had you.」 「That’s a lie!!」

Tears were drawing at the corners of her eyes, as she raised her voice. She looked as if someone had just shown her proof of her parents committing a vile, heinous act.

「Don’t you insult mother and father! I won’t forgive you for it! Mother would… mother would… never… something like this…」 「Right, okay, I got it, I got it. You were born out of a cabbage patch. Or perhaps you’re the result of mitosis like a bacteria. I think that’s the most logical explanation. Let’s just leave it at that, so just look at a few of them if you want to. Got it?」 「This can’t be… something like this… it absolutely… can’t be true…」

Tilarna kept turning the pages of the porn magazine, as she tumbled backwards, falling defeated into her seat while muttering more incoherent sentences. She was truly an empty shell. Matoba felt a little sorry for her, but in the end this was an experience that most people had to go through eventually, so he’d let her be.

「But more importantly…」

It really looked like she was at the level of a middle school kid, or even lower than that. He thought that at most her face would turn completely red, and she would get a little confused, but he never expected to be that hopeless. Did she really think storks carried babies to their parents or something? With this he finally understood the reason Tilarna acted so defenseless at home all the time. Generally speaking he had been bluntly telling her to “not come near him” whenever she started doing as she pleased, but now he knew that he never fundamentally understood what it truly would’ve meant if he had actually approached her somehow.

Doesn’t this just mean that Tilarna is basically a kid?

So basically, Semanians themselves are…

Ah, I get it

It had been going on for a while, and it seemed like the theft incident was just a part of it all. In any case, the first thing he had to do was gather the crew that would be helping him out. Matoba started looking around the office.

Out of the less than twenty desks around the office, about half were vacant at the moment.

He locked eyes with Camie and Jamie who were laughing nonchalantly.

Detective Cameron Estefan and Detective Jamie Austin. Both of them were women. Camie had black hair and was of Latin American descent, while Jamie was blonde and was of English descent. Both had a style fitting for models, and just the space between both of their desks was completely radiant because of them. Because of a recent mission, they were dressed in expensive name brand clothing.

It almost seemed like one of the reasons they started working at Vice was because of the flashiness of it all. But in reality both Jamie and Camie were serious officers, who wore equally serious and low profile attire off duty.

He had seen Camie’s high school pictures. She was the type of girl that would wear thick black framed glasses, any lame stamped T-shirt and wore no makeup, and would regularly take pictures with her equally unfashionable friends. She said it was a picture of her school’s literature club or something like that.

Jamie had never shown him pictures of her past, but she says she used to be like that as well. She would frequently run her hands down her thin waist and reminisce “you know? I used to be really fat in high school”. Apparently she started losing weight during police training, and eventually got to look the way she does now. Maybe she could make a fortune showing what she did to other women all over the world.

「Hey. Cami, Jamie. Looking good as always.」

He made an effort to sound extra friendly, but both their bodies got stiff and then elegantly turned around smiling, and stared directly at Matoba. Their brown pupils shone charmingly. Camie replied with a smile.

「Thank you, Kei. But I think I’ll pass on your search for porn.」 「That was quick.」

Matoba’s makeshift smile vanished from his face. Apparently it had already spread through the office how this case had been forced on him.

「You only speak with that lovely voice whenever you have some nasty work for us to do. Which is why I think I’ll pass.」

Said Camie

「Uh… then how should I ask you?」 「I’m going to say no, no matter how you ask, cowboy. We’re going to Metosera later. After arresting this piece of trash pimp that hurt this poor girl, we have a lot to do. So could you please not ruin our plans?」

Whenever he talked with those two, Camie generally was doing most of the talking. She had a certain big sister vibe to her. Jamie on the other hand was the quiet one. Camie would constantly take every little chance to talk down to Matoba. He had once asked his friend Tony, 「Do you think Camie hates my guts?」 but perceptive as always, Tony replied, 「It’s not that simple, Kei. Don’t you notice something much more important than that?」

But even after being told with such a mysterious tone, Matoba still had no clue what he was talking about.

「Then does she like me?」

To which Tony laughed and simply said

「No, not that.」

Since Tony never really explained anything afterwards no matter how much he asked, Matoba simply stopped worrying about it altogether.

「Hm, is that so? Alright then, sorry to bother you.」

He gave up on the two of them and went to look for someone else to help them. And then Jamie meekly called out to him.

「Hey… Kei」 「Huh?」 「How’s Tilarna? Is she doing well?」 「Do you mean… because of the previous mission? She’s just full of complaints.」

Then Jamie laughed and fixed her curly blonde hair.

「I see. That’s pretty reassuring to hear.」 「Why?」 「Don’t worry about it. It seems like you’re having it rough, but hang in there.」 「Alright.」

He replied bluntly and continued his search for other people. As he turned his back to them, he could hear Camie groan for some reason, and then he could see her innocently laughing with Jamie about something. He didn’t really get it, but maybe they had bet on something.

After that, Matoba tried to ask for help from several other coworkers that seemed to have some time, but in the end they all ended up running away. They would say that they had plans, or that they had a lot of paperwork to do later, or that they had a huge investigation about this dealer a little later, and so on and so on.

Have I always been this unpopular around the office?

He thought. Generally speaking he always gave his best and was energetic at work, and he thought he had done a pretty good job at being a sort of manager when the previous boss before Zimmer left the spot vacant. No, this wasn’t a matter of popularity. It was just that most people didn’t want to do this specific job, and were trying to run away from it.

And then came his savior. It was Tony.

He had just arrived at work for the day, and was greeting everybody in a good mood. Matoba approached him directly in a stride.

「Hi~ Kei.」 「Hey, Tony. You’re looking better than usual today. That necktie looks great on you.」 「Oh, thank you. Just choosing this specific one took more than thirty minutes, so I’m really happy you noticed it… But at the same time that greeting gave me a terrible vibe from you.」 「Is that so? Do you have some time, Tony?」 「Sure. I already went around the entire place, so all I have left is some paperwork to do…」 「I think they finally got a new coffee machine. Come on. Let’s go and talk there…」

「Kei truly is the worst.」 Sneered Tony as they were walking through the Police HQ’s parking lot. 「I thought he was actually being nice for once, with that tone of his. But a porn stealing gang? Isn’t it just a group of middle school kids or something? In any case, isn’t it odd? Do you guys really get so desperate about seeing naked women all the time?」 「I mean, I think that’s pretty normal. At the very least, I don’t mind.」

Replied Godunov, Tony’s partner who had also been dragged along for this mission, completely indifferent to the discussion. The huge Russian man rarely ever got truly angry. He was usually a laid back guy, who would even remain calm when things went south during an investigation.

They got in their Gabriole Citroen, and then Godunov asked after getting in the driver seat.

「So… are we going to do as Kei said?」 「I guess so… Since he said he would be the one going around asking about it. We’re just going to have to wait for them to take the bait. I really want to get this over with though.」

After getting Tony and Godunov to help him with the porn stealing gang, Matoba had divided their roles in the investigation.

Matoba and Tilarna would be going around asking for information. They would visit the few injured people at the printing offices, look at the security cameras, look at porn distribution routes and info… well, that kind of work. Tony and Godunov would help them out whenever they had the time, but their main goal would be acting as bait.

They circulated a rumour about a man wanting to buy a lot of porn magazines, and they were hoping to catch the gang if they fell for it. There was also the possibility that Matoba and Tilarna would be recognized by the guy from the porn stealing gang, so in the end Tony and Godunov ended up going.