He burst into Carmichael's office.
The old man didn't look up from his racing forms.
"The hell you want, kid?"
Bulge slapped the paper onto the desk.
"Who's handling S-rank cases?"
Carmichael's yellowed teeth flashed in something that wasn't a smile.
"Not you."
"Go and find your detective."
Bulge's knuckles turned bone-white around the fax paper as he stalked down the corridors of Precinct 47, each step echoing with fury and frustration. The hallway was bathed in flickering neon—blues and sickly greens bleeding from the overheads, casting jagged shadows that jittered with each faulty flicker. The linoleum beneath his boots was cracked and grimy, a forgotten chessboard of rot and light. Somewhere nearby, a coolant pipe hissed like a dying serpent. Or a lover whispering threats through clenched teeth.
He didn't knock.
Detective Vaughn's office door slammed open hard enough to rattle the frame. Vaughn barely looked up.
The man was built like a riot wall square, brutal, and immovable. A scar traced the side of his neck like a barcode, his bulk wedged into a chair far too small for him. The room reeked of stale whiskey, old cigars, and something distinctly chemical. On the desk: scattered brass casings, a crusted protein brick already crawling with green synth-mold, and an open bottle of something illegal.
"Earth?" Vaughn barked a laugh. It hit the room like a shotgun blast. He didn't stop cleaning his plasma pistol. A fleck of spit landed directly on the fax paper.
"That's a joke, right? What's next? Investigating Atlantis?"
Bulge didn't flinch.
"It's S-rank. Direct from Central."
That got a pause.
Vaughn's hands froze mid-motion. The oil cloth hovered, motionless, over the pistol's charging port. Something flickered in the man's bloodshot eyes not surprise, not concern, but something meaner. Like a predator catching the scent of something it might enjoy tearing apart.
Then, just as quickly, it was gone.
"S-rank? bullshit..," he muttered, snapping the pistol back together with a click that echoed like a verdict.
"That rock's been a graveyard since before you were born. Now get out before I forget I'm retired from breaking noses."
Bulge didn't argue. He just turned and walked out.
Detective Chandra's office was colder. Literally. Frost laced the reinforced glass walls, creeping like veins through the surface. The interior hummed with refrigeration fans, keeping the temperature low enough to preserve her custom cyberware.
She sat behind a glass desk, posture perfect, one organic eye and one synthetic, its red lens whirring softly trained on the document in front of her.
"S-rank clearance requires credentials," she said, her voice calm, clinical.
"Not coffee stains and desperation." She tapped a nicotine-yellowed corner of the page.
Bulge stepped closer, voice low.
"You've got a live line to Central's archive. Run it. I'll wait."
The fans pulsed louder for a moment. Her mechanical eye blinked once, then twice adjusting, calculating.
For three long heartbeats, nothing moved.
Then, her organic eye narrowed.
"Even if it's real," she said, tone colder than the air around her,
"you're not who they'd send. You're just a clerk with a badge and a pulse. No one important."
She slid the page back across the desk with surgical precision.
Rejected.
Detective Marlowe didn't even pretend to care. His office was a glowbox of spinning holograms, case files, facial scans, rotating planetary maps. The man didn't look up as Bulge stepped in.
Bulge dropped the fax on his desk.
Without a word, Marlowe reached out, eyes still locked on some distant data stream. He lifted the paper, held it up to the blue light of the terminal—and crushed it into a ball with slow, deliberate fingers.
It hit Bulge square in the chest. A soft thud. A silent judgment.
Back in the hallway, the crumpled fax hung loose in Bulge's grip, edges wilted, purpose fading. Around him, the precinct buzzed with the indifferent noise of bureaucracy—shouting perps in holding, the static snap of comms chatter, doors slamming open and closed.
A rookie passed by, smirking.
"Heard Vaughn gave you his 'welcome package.'"
Bulge didn't reply.
He just stared at the page. The bold words that had once screamed INVESTIGATION OF EARTH: S-RANK PRIORITY were now nothing but warped letters bleeding into crumples and creases.
The page looked defeated.
And, for the first time, so did he.
Somewhere, far above or far below, a clock began to tick.
And the countdown was still on.