Chapter 2

Skenjkenj was far from barren. In fact, if it wasn’t for the reputation, it would appear to be a bountiful land, dotted by suburbs, parks, streetlights, and other things that were not commonly associated with murder. But its reputation was warranted, and had the highest murder rate per capita of any planet in the galaxy, except for the ice planet Plark, which only had a population of 3 people, all of who were murdered. The suburbs of Skenjkenj were populated by up and coming criminals commuting into their respective criminal dens in the cities. By day they ran some of the most dangerous criminal enterprises of the galaxy, and by night they coached space soccer teams and were members of the Parent Teacher Group. And so the Dutiful Vigilante (crash) landed on the planet, in desperate need of fuel…and maybe some friendship as well.

Jackson knew the game, and he knew how to game the game, play the game, and where the game was held. The first thing they would have to do would be to go to the regional elders of the Black Cross Mob and beg for fuel, and hopefully not get killed in progress. They had the advantage of being officers of the law, but the disadvantage that everyone on the planet wanted to kill officers of the law, so it was a complex dichotomy. “Listen, I know a guy, who can tell us where we can get some fuel. Just let me do the talking and we might get out of this place alive.” Jackson reasoned.

“What are you, some sort of corrupt cop?” Bones inquired by asking.
“No.” Jackson responded by answering.

The group made their way to the Clearwater Freshbridge chapter of the Black Cross Mob, and hoped that no one noticed they were military police. The building was a mix of sinister industrial warehouse and post-colonial columnar boutique architecture, with the words “Black Cross Mob: Die Cops Die: See secretary for appointment” etched on the front of the building. The only thing the Black Cross Mob hated more than cops were people who showed up without appointments, this group had one of those and not one of the other ones, because they were cops without an appointment.

“Helloooo, welcome to th-“ The secretary said, being cut off by whoever is speaking next.

“Yeah listen, I wanna speak to the boss here!” Jackson said.

“Well, if you could ju-“ The secretary said, interrupted by a mystery person named…

“I don’t have time for this shit, get outta my way.” Bones said, looking for an excuse to kick down some door or at least burn the place down.

“We don’t have a space warrant, and must therefore wait for permission.” 4d4 said, in a way that would have been listened to if he was working with people who had ever used a warrant in their lives.

“We don’t have time for that, they might destroy the evidence by the time we call some fat cat judge.” Bones inclined.

“I was under the assumption we were searching for fuel…” 4d4 correctituded. The team burst through the front door all the same, since 4d4 was programmed only to remind people of the rules, not actually follow them (a key design flaw of that line of robots).

“Whoa whoa whoa, who are you and why are you alive?” The mob boss said.

“I can’t answer that myself.” Bones said, both forgetting their actual reason for being there, and being old and nearly dead.

“Listen, we need fuel so we can get off this goddamn planet. We are police, so we use some sort of acquisition law or whatever, so we are just going to take your property.”

“Well, it is usually my policy to just kill cops and then eat breakfast, but boy am I hungry.” The mob boss fatted, since he was overweight, and had no hair, and his nose was in the shape of an elephant. “Also, we might just be able to work out a deal…”

“I don’t make deals with criminals, but what is the deal and we accept” Bones said as well as Jackson, with their sentence kinda melding together at some point.

“I need some enterprising/desperate people such as yourselves to root out a particularly troublesome individual in my district. This guy has been rummaging around for a few days, but my men just can’t shake him, and it is beginning to look like I ain’t doing my job to the higher ups. So I need you to find and get rid of this guy. Do this and you get your fuel…and your lives.” The mob boss was ugly.

“Just who is this guy…” Everyone said in unison, including the mob boss.
-------------------------------------------
Marlo Perkins was rummaging through the garbage, just like he did yesterday, and the day before that. He did that because he already checked all of the shops, and the houses, and the people, and other…places. Marlo was getting close, he could taste it/garbage. For months Marlo had been driven by a single goal, a goal that had caused him to give up his job at the space ranger academy and devote himself to justice. 4 space months ago, Marlo’s chameleon ran away. The last chameleon in the entire universe, and Marlo loved him. His name was Quack, and he either ran away…or was kidnapped. Either way Marlo had tracked down every lead, which led him to Skenjkenj. He didn’t know if he was getting close, since chameleons were hard to see and he spent most of his time killing random gangters/people wondering why he was in their house, but Marlo knew one thing. No one could stop his quest.

Unlike every other killer day on Skenjkenj there was a lawful neutral air amongst the rubbish. Three blatant souls were pressed with a killer problem, to find and kill the last chameleon and judge him, executioner style. The chameleons were a long forgotten race from a long forgotten planet from long ago. They evolved over many space years into a bipedal human-esc, space english speaking race. But their latent psychic, and light bending powers of their original ancestors still flowed in their veins. this gave them the ultimate power to cast illusions whenever and however they felt like it. Before the Second Galactic Confederacy was overthrown, the last legislation of Roberto E. Lee sentenced every last chameleon to death [executioner style] for crimes against non-lizards and his General distane for change.

"So were do we even start this charade..." Bones said. if he was playing charades right now he would have been acting as a pissed cop.

"From what little 'mob boss' had to say, we should assume there is a 99% chance that this criminal is on the planet assuming his sources were reliable. Else we should kill ourselves now and respawn on the closest non-hostile planet." 4d4 said in a calculated way.

"But if i killed myself i wouldn't we just die?" Jackson noted.

"Have you not updated to iHuman-OS 2.9.34.5? There was a backup-respawn feature implemented in that release."

"Yeah whatever, stop nagging me i'll do it later."

"That individual update was released over 20 space years ago..."

"I've had more important things to do."

"#DidYouReally #Sarcasm"

While Jackson and 4d4 were entering heated conversation, Bones decided he had better things to do with his life (or what remained of it). he didn't need no cyber enhancements, back when he was a kid, kids used to take nice, healthy hyper-cyanide life extension pills rather then upgrading their space god given body with augmentations. Bones quickly snapped out of old man story time regression when his fire forged instincts illuminated a digression afoot. A dirty looking man was parsing through some trash instead of killing or stabbing other peoples fleshy organs.

"You sir, have you seen a chameleon around these parts." Bones asked in cop manner with his pen and paper out. The man look surprised and became rigid. he looked towards Bones slowly.

"What's your business in chameleons, said Marlo Perkins" Said Marlo Perkins in third person prose.

"My business is my own, and so will be your life if you dont yap quickly, my gun's hurting to blow out some under developed brains" Bones knew the talk and walked the walk amongst criminals.

"Yeah yeah yeah, what are you? Some kind of Gold Lion? You're in the Jungle baby!"

"And you're gonna die if you dont speak up quick!" Bones said as he pulled out his space-revolver and pointed it towards Marlo.

"Alright, alright, calm down; i used to own a chameleon named Quack. he was my best friend and i loved him, he either ran away or was kidnapped." Marlo divulged under the pressure of death, and death taxes.

"You feel too much and think too little, Marlo... For a space slaver."

"He wasn't a slave!" Marlo angered "He was a normal 6 foot tall bipedal human-esc chameleon pet. And he loved me! This is just a game of hide and go seek, yeah thats it!" Marlo crazy-ed

Bones pulled his gun away from Marlo. He knew he wasn't getting anywhere else with this walking insane asylum, though he could be useful for finding 'Quack'" While Bones was interrogating Marlo Jackson and 4d4 had found Bones after their argument resolved.

"Bones, have you found out anything that would assist us in this endeavor of finding and dispatching the chameleon?" 4d4 asked.

"Maybe not, but i've got a idea..." Bones said while cooking up a scheme in his metaphorical brain frying pan.

Bones then used his literal frying pan to beat Marlo until he told him more about chameleons (they were doing good-cop bad-cop, so Jackson gave Marlo a can of Space Cola after two of his teeth went flying out). “Ah ha!” exclaimed Bones in a detectivish manner. “So chameleons enjoy living in warm environments! We should fly to the equator of this planet and search there for this chameleon!”

“Um, we don’t have any fuel, remember?” reminded Jackson.
“Oh yeah. Let’s just check the ghetto then.”

The ghetto of Skenjkenj was a misnomer. The entire planet was a ghetto. The ghetto, by contrast, was clean, crime-free, and didn’t smell like urine. On the other hand, it was permanently on fire because of lava hotbeds underneath it and science. As the intrepid team entered, they felt their intrepidness reaching a new record low.

“Should we perhaps consider leaving, and returning when this sector is not on fire? That seems affirmative to life expectancy,” posited 4d4.

“In my day, bags of bolts may not have had all their fancy gizmos and gadgets, but one thing they never in a million years would even dream of doing is bitch as much as you do!” ranted Bones.

“Logic is not ‘bitching’, Officer Ready.”

“Oh yeah! I forgot to mention until now, but I kind of sold your positive anti-capacitator for 12 ounces of space heroin. Trust me, I’ll be able to buy it back, but for now I need to strip a couple of your nuts and bolts,” put in Jackson.

“ARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH MAIN SYSTEM EMOTION CONTROL MELTDOWN RAGE MODE ENGAGE FUCK YOUUUUUUUUU ALLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL!” exploded 4d4. “I am a highly trained robot, not a bag of bolts or a fresh rookie! I am not a piece of property whose components can be sold to a random buyer! I have several hundred weapons on my person. You both need to start respecting my abilities and rights or I will use all of them simultaneously on both of you. UNDERSTAND?”

There was stunned silence for a minute.
“Well, only a true cop could have that much anger,” said Bones. “Welcome to the team! Now we just need to channel that energy into productive pastimes, like arresting perps and forgetting to read them their rights!”
“Yeah, I’m sorry I sold your whatchamajigger to a major gang lord,” said Jackson. “He does kind of want his payment though, and he IS standing right there…”

Protolord stepped out of the shadows. He was….a robot!
“Request imminent payment of debt or your life process will be reaped in 10. 9. 8. 7. 6-“
“Hold on, pal. Can’t we work something out? I can get you a backstage pass to see the Space Rolling Stones. Or a fucking FANTASTIC parking space in New New York.”
“I require a positive anti-capacitator. Patience protocol terminated in 5. 4. 3. 2-“
Just then, 4d4 fired a bright purple beam from one of his fingers into the core of Protolord. He exploded (and then he was destroyed).

“Whoa. How did you do that?”
“Simple. I assumed that since he needed a positive anti-capacitator, his gamma reflectors were operating at low terminal velocity and a primed molarity pulse could inflict significant damage.”
“Alright, you have a new, ironic name, Mr. Roboto: Brains.”

And thus, Brains, Bones, and Jackson went off into the sunset, no closer to finding a chameleon (and farther away, having spent several hours in the company of the toxic fumes of the ghetto) but much closer to finding true friendship.