Quiet Piggy Part 1

I left the Militsiya and decided to become a private investigator. Colleagues in the service reckoned I had made a bad choice. But I felt it was the right move. Jump now and chart my own path before I got caught up in some shit storm. Politics in the Red City had changed massively since the early days. Factional fighting between the Old Guard, the Kropotkinists and now the New Era Socialists meant that blood was being spilt every day. Well maybe not everyday but on a regular basis. It was politics that saw me catapulted from being a grunt in the Sixth Division to a cushy post as a detective with the Black Market section in 9th Division. Halcyon days.

Ten years later though and I'd cashed in, got a license as a private eye and for a while rested on my laurels. I did a little bit of sideline work, mainly acting as a bouncer or a security guard. Penny ante stuff, still it helped pay the bills and keep me fed. I had an office, I knew the city as much as anyone could. But the gigs were not rolling in. Perhaps it was because in certain 'private' sectors I was still tarred with the scent of bacon that no one wanted to offer me a job. Or maybe it really was that there were no jobs.

The first big break came when I had ordered breakfast in Gloria's Atomik Cafe.

I frequented the place as it was on the ground floor of the building I lived in and operated out of. Gloria's featured the standard Atomik Cafe menu but it had a little extra. Specifically a few different breakfast dishes and the coffee, the black coffee was as black as singularity, in fact I often called it that, and tasted as an uncle of mine used to exclaim "Bellisimo". It was great when you had a massive hangover from a bender, which on this particular day I had.

I had just ordered a big plate of fried eggs, bacon, tomato and a side of fries along with a cup of singlualrity. Heart attack on plate my old man used to call that kind of meal. Fifty years working as a fishmonger he'd certainly known. He couldn't eat fish, but he could certain scarf down fried eggs bacon and tomato like it was nothings. Shame that it did him in at the end. My meal was swiftly delivered by Denise or Denny as she preferred to be called.

She placed my meal down in front of me along with my cup of singularity. Then she immediate sat down in the booth seat opposite. The cafe was fairly empty for a weekday. I took a sip of my beverage and looked at her. She obviously had something she wanted to say. She had bright orange hair, a pierced nose, piercings in her ears and she had some strange esoteric symbol tattooed on her left hand. She looked to be in her mid twenties. Why on earth she'd want to talk to me had me curious. Not overtly so, but I was curious nonetheless.

"So Zane is it true you're a gumshoe?" she said.

"Yep, I've a license, an office why do you ask?" I took a bite of my food. Perhaps Denny was a detective fangirl? I hoped not.

"I've been appointed by a group of concerned individuals to engage your services," she said in all seriousness.

I continued eating, took another sip of coffee.

"OK I'll bite, who's the group?"

She reached into the pocket of her apron and pulled out a flyer. It had a photo of five garishly dressed young women with various instruments. Emblazoned over this picture in cyrillic were the words QUIET PIGGY. A translation in English and several venue dates were at the bottom. Denny appeared to be a member of this collective.

"So we Quiet Piggy want to engage your services."

I finished my coffee.

"What's the job then? I don't mind if you need a roadie or if you need security," I said.

"We need you to find something," Denny said. "Specifically our vocalists guitar." She tapped the girl in the centre, specifically on the instrument in question. It looked as if was some barbarian's rune engraved axe than a musical instrument but I suppose that was just the style these days. "Given that we're a grrl band we believe reactionary elements might be behind the theft of Ziggy's guitar."

I raised an eyebrow at the mention of reactionary elements, it was something straight out of a Party propaganda pamphlet.

"Had any run ins with the Politicals?"

"No, were not like the Red Front or Red Skorpions," she said. "Though we do call a spade a spade and corruption corruption as well calling out misogyny and sexism."

"OK then I'll take the case. But I need you and the rest of Quiet Piggy to meet me in my office to make it all official." I reached into my jacket pocket and passed over a card. "My assistant will give you a time for us to meet. Once we've signed the papers, dotted the eyes and crossed the tees i can go to work."

"Not a problem, I'll get in touch with everyone else. It'll probably be sometime this evening, is that OK?"

"Not a problem," I said and got stuck into finishing my breakfast.

I had my first bona fide case...