Independent Puppets

Episode 3: Where There's Smoke [Part 1]

7 AM, June 14th 2019

In a bedroom not too far away, specifically about 3 miles, from the village where our 3 human heroines lived, an alarm clock began its daily ring to mark 7 o'clock in the morning - a time set by its user to wake him up at that selected moment so that he could go through his morning routine and then get to work without being late.

Upon hearing the alarm clock blaring right next to him, this user reached out his arm and smacked it with his hand, silencing it immediately. He then decided to sit upright in his bed, as he was awake now so he might as well get up, and drowsily rubbed both of his eyes with his other hand. Another sound, this one being of a set of 4 footsteps growing nearer, was afterwards heard, soon revealed to be belonging to a Saint Bernard who approached the right hand side of the bed and put his head on top of the duvet next to where his master's arm was. 

"Hey, Sumo." Lieutenant Hank Anderson gave his dog a stroke on his head, earning the canine equivalent of a purr from Sumo in response. 

Hank was a police detective from Michigan who had been transferred to England 2 years ago and had since been working for the police department in the Midlands, maintaining his rank of Lieutenant, and he'd had Sumo since 2012. This dog had come with him to the U.K when he was transferred. 

Anyway, this Friday morning, he did everything he usually did on a working day; after going to the bathroom and washing his face, having some breakfast and getting dressed into his usual attire, which can only be described as relatively retro for lack of a better term, he grabbed his car keys off the kitchen table and began the 15 minute journey to his workplace, the Midlands Police Department. The station was located in the same city where he lived, which was a few miles outside of the village, but his house and the police station were on different sides of this city, which is why it took this long to travel there.

"Hank." A couple of hours after he'd arrived at the station for work, like he did almost every day, one of his superior officers spoke up from the other side of the main office area. "There's a phone call for you in here." This officer pointed behind him with his thumb, into the space where his own office was.

"Whatever it is must be pretty important for it to be coming through on your phone." Lieutenant Anderson said in reply as he got up from his desk, where there was his own business phone, and made his way past all the other officers around him who were talking amongst themselves or reading reports on paperwork or on their computer screens. "Who is it?"

"I don't know. The caller hasn't mentioned his identity yet, but he said he wants to speak to you." 

The sounds of background chatter and other phones ringing cluttered up the office area and created the overall ambience of Hank's workplace; sounds which he was rather well accustomed to by now after working there in that police station for the last 2 years. Although, of course, geographical location had no bearing on whether or not this background noise existed, as pretty much any workplace environment would obviously have people conversing in the background, so it was the same type of ambience around him at his previous station back in Detroit.

Getting back to the main storyline, he approached his superior who was stood in his office and handed the phone over to him once he was close enough, holding it up to his right ear.

"Hello?" He said into it.

"Lieutenant Anderson?" Came a reply from the voice on the other end of the line. The accent sounded American, like his own.

"Yeah, that's me. Who wants to know?"

"My name is Elijah Kamski." Was the caller's answer. "I'm the CEO of the CyberLife corporation."