Trooper Station; Monday [07/16].

[died8yearsago]

When Rosa walked into the station that morning, clinging to her coffee, it appeared that the troopers had raided the cat section at the shelter and were using all the toys and scratchers and carpet-lined baskets to decorate Kincaid's desk.

She had only one question.

"Do I even want to know?"

And they had only one answer.

"No, probably not."

"Yeah, okay," she said, moving over to her own desk, having a seat and trying to ignore them, but it was a little hard when they kept getting distracted and playing with the little dangly toys amongst themselves.

[[open!]]

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[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan stopped by on his run. There was an officer he hadn't seen before sitting at one of the desks. Liam's desk was.. decorated. With cat things. Kaidan didn't question it, but he did toss one at the other officer, "Hey, you happen to know when Liam's going to be back?"

[died8yearsago]

Rosa looked up from her work and blinked at the man.

"Who?" she asked.

You know, Rosa, that guy you work for?

"Oh, right, Kincaid. Uhhh," she shrugged, "I don't know, he's usually in more at the end of the week."

And, after giving him a look over, deciding he wasn't too bad on the eyes, added, "Need me to leave a message for him?"

Or, rather, take the message and then make Ralph remember to give it to him, because she probably...wouldn't.

[spectre_alenko]

"Huh," Kaidan noted, "He's usually here whenever I stop by. It's weird his chair is empty. Anyway, yeah, message.. He's going to want to get ahold of a flamethrower or maybe some algicide. Salt? Something, I dunno. One of the tunnels under the island's getting frisky. I locked the door, so it should be contained on this end."

He'd also shot the absolute shit out of everything in the tunnel. Kaidan wasn't admitting to use of an unregistered firearm to a cop, however.

[died8yearsago]

Rosa grunted faintly. She'd mostly be able to avoid any of that tunnel crap so far, which she considered a good thing, but if flamethrowers were involved...

Sure, Mondays were her desk duty days, but that was really just a convenient excuse for when Seivarden lost her stupid cat. Flamethrowers should definitely be an exception.

"That...doesn't sound like something that should really wait," she said cautiously. "What kind of frisky are we talking about here?"

[spectre_alenko]

"It's locked in," Kaidan assured her, "It seemed inert until I walked into it, and I was pretty far into the tunnel before it decided to get nasty." He explained, "Slime formed humanoids. They weren't able to talk. I asked if they were sentient or if they could talk, but they attacked. I dealt with them, but the slime's still in there. I don't know if it's dead or just resting."

Welcome to Fandom, where that was a day ending in 'y'.

[died8yearsago]

"Only one way to find out," said Rosa, who, pushing her chair back and stood up, went into full-on cop mode. She might actually be overdoing it a little bit, but she didn't get to do this very often anymore, so she was going to milk it for all it was worth. She reached for her gun, tucked it into her holster, opened a drawer in her desk with her boot to reveal her knife and her taser, got those, tucked those into place, then narrowed her eyes thoughtfully at a cabinet.

"Slime formed humanoids, you said?" she turned thought considering eyes toward the guy. "So no gremlins?"

[spectre_alenko]

"No, no gremlins," Kaidan answered, watching her gun up, "It formed them up from the puddle on the floor."

"I'm not armed," he pointed out, "Should I be?"

Yes, Kaidan, generally you should be every day, dolt.

[died8yearsago]

"Yeah, 'cause that's what I want to do," said Rosa, "go blind into a situation I know nothing about with an armed civilian I don't know. Hey! Ralph! Drop the catnip, we got marching orders. Go grab the flamethrower...and probably those electromagnetic restraints that work on pretty much anything. Larry, you got the phones."

And while Ralph, who didn't even have the captnip, went to grab the stuff, Rosa turned her attention back to the guy, lifting her chin. "What were you doing down in the tunnels, anyway?"

[spectre_alenko]

"Major Alenko, Navy," Kaidan introduced himself with a frown, "I am not a civilian."

Watching the scurrying, he asked dryly, "Would you like the keys to the lock? Liam mentioned that the missing potholes was a symptom of something worse. I figured an open door, where it's been a closed and locked door the last month, might be another. Could've been just kids messing around. Wanted to make sure nobody was in there before I slapped a padlock on it."

[died8yearsago]

Rosa gave him a little bit of a look, because, yeah, go ahead and get salty about her not knowing who he was or like it even mattered.

"Fair enough," she said. "You think it's...related to the missing potholes, then."

Great. Now that thing that just seemed like it was stupid might actually be little slime men...

[spectre_alenko]

He kind of thought the dog tags around his neck might've given her a clue that he wasn't civvy.

Kaidan shrugged, "Don't know. A door open where it hadn't been any other time I've gone past it, a tunnel full of frisky slime, could be related; could be just another day in our fine little town."

Digging the keys out of his pocket, he offered them, "It's the westernmost pumphouse. You'll recognize it by the koala-shaped padlock."

[died8yearsago]

WHOOPS

Hey, people bought dog tags at frickin' Hot Topic these days. They didn't mean much of sight alone; "Emily" had bought, like, dozens.

"Oh, no," said Rosa, shaking her head, hiding the faint smirk in the corner of her mouth as she folded her arms to make it clear she wasn't taking the keys. "You're coming with us, Major. Could be related, could be just another day, could be a student you just locked up in a tunnel. You're sticking around until that report's signed and filed."

Weren't you justso glad to stop in when Liam wasn't around now, Alenko?

[spectre_alenko]

"I am not going near that place unarmed," Kaidan said flatly, "You can either sign me out a firearm or let me go home and grab mine, but if you think I'm going in there, or that I'm going to stand at the door and let you go in there, without one on me, you have another heavy think coming."

He was, actually. He could guess what Liam was going to have to say about this.

And if that was a student.. he'd done a lot more than just lock it in.

[died8yearsago]

Yeah, there was probably a lot he could say about her doing her job and him not briefing her on information.

"Or third option," Rosa said, "you can stay here and keep Larry company. Sorry. I don't know you, anyone can waltz in here claiming to be Navy, that doesn't mean I have to believe them. We might have an injured citizen in those tunnels, sir, and I can't just hand out guns to anyone who walks in here. God forbid we actually follow proper procedures around here. So, fine, I'll take the keys and go check it out, you stay here and give Larry your stateme--"

She cut herself off, full stop, her eyes suddenly going wide with an expression of disgust.

"Ohmygod, this place is turning me into a Santiago."

And Amy Santiago was side-eying her all the way from Brooklyn, because, no, sweetie, you still have a long way to go until that.

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan handed over the keys, "I'll take the third option, then, and just wish you good luck."

[died8yearsago]

"Thanks."

And just when she was starting to wonder what happened to Ralph, he showed up with the flamethrower and the restraints, but he looked a little nervous about something, and Rosa just turned an expectantly glare on him. "What?"

"Uhhh, problem with the flamethrower, Detective."

"Problem? What problem? I was just using that the other day."

"That's the problem. There's no more fuel in it, you used it all up to burn up that fish."

...yeah, she had a while to get to Santiago status for sure. A small, awkward silence followed.

"Then refill it."

"There's no more left."

"Then go to Turtle & Canary and get some. God, this is the stupidest police station in the entire world! Larry, take the man's statement. Ralph, go get the fuel and I'll meet you there. Happy freaking Monday."

And she left the station, leaving a handful of troopers in her wake managing to look somewhat apologetic even with their helmets on, she sincerely hoped that whatever it was in the tunnels wasn't just a monster, that it was a student, severely injured, so she could take it into the clinic to foist onto Doctor Buzzkill so then maybe she wouldn't be the only one to have a ridiculous day.

Should have just taken the message for Kincaid, Diaz, but you had to get all excited, didn't you?

[spectre_alenko]

Kaidan watched with something like amusement as the Keystone Kops display happened in front of him. Then he turned to Larry and obligingly gave his statement, though he left out a few details. Such as his biotic abilities. He'd give Liam a better briefing later.

He trusted Liam. He had just met Larry, and Rosa, and Rosa hadn't scored herself any points at all by accusing him of stolen valor instead of asking to see his military ID.