Rhythm and Police

Rhythm and Police is the 15th Track in Kiwi Blitz. It is named for “Rhythm and Police (K.O.G G3 Mix)” by CJ CREW feat. Christian D.

Summary (spoiler-free)
We see Reed's new arm. His father, the Chief of Police, disapproves of Blitz, who sent her regards specifically to Reed on the "birthday card" that was delivered along with the unconscious Natrix. Jones organizes a SWAT attack on Alter headquarters, but the gang finds out and it's the police who are attacked.

Plot
The two pretitle pages show a conversation between Reed and Cho, who has asked him to come in even though it's not his shift. First she asks to see his new arm. It's metal, and red, and has an opening on top of the back of the hand which appears to be able to shoot something. It prompts Cho to call him "Iron Man." Then she shows him the main reason she wanted to see him: the "birthday card" from Blitz, which says, "Yo, Cops: I heard you've been having some trouble with these animal dudes, so I thought I'd snag one for ya! Give my regards to Lawnie Reed. :)  --BLITZ."  Reed is not happy about being singled out like this by a lawless vigilante, even one he likes.  (He doesn't want any speculation among the police about the possibility that he instigated Blitz's interest in Alter.)

After the title page, Reed and Cho walk down the hallway and run into Jones, whom Reed addresses as "Celesta." After she kisses him and they continue onward, Cho's comment is "Jones has a first name?" which is funny coming from Cho, whose first name has also not been in evidence.

Meanwhile, Officers Flores and Barnes are interviewing Natrix, who refuses to answer their questions about Alter. Flores points out that they already have plenty of evidence against him from the flash disk that Steffi included with the "birthday" card. He says they didn't have a warrant to search his computer, but Flores replies that they didn't do a search; the disk just showed up on their doorstep. "That's cheating," Natrix replies.

Reed, Cho, and Jones are watching the interview through the window. Jones says that it doesn't matter whether Natrix says anything, because they already have the location of Alter headquarters from the flash disk, and that she has arranged for a SWAT team to invade and search it. The police from this station are to be present as backup.Reed then goes to his father (the Chief)'s office. Chief Bahia approves of Reed's hookup with Jones, but disapproves of his interactions with Blitz. Reed, who is very unhappy at this point in the conversation, says that Blitz means well, and because she's not the police, she can do things they can't legally do. (He doesn't mention the specific case of her searching Natrix's computer.) Reed goes on to say that he didn't think Blitz would "pick a fight with gangsters." The Chief says he's willing to let the matter drop as long as she doesn't show up again. He goes on to critique Reed's taste in prosthetics, and says that it's just as well if Reed doesn't know where Alter headquarters is, just to make sure Blitz doesn't turn up there.

Later, Reed calls Steffi to complain about being named in her message to the police. She unhappily replies that she was just trying to cheer him up. He tells her to keep her head down for a while. He abruptly ends the conversation, because of an email from Jones, saying she's uneasy about the Alter invasion and asking him to come, giving him the address. Steffi reports the conversation to Ben, who is busy posing hypothetical situations to 42 to find out when she would and wouldn't be willing to fight a human.

Later that night, the police officers we've met are waiting at their rendezvous point for the SWAT team to turn up. Jones offers to go around and look for them, but Cho follows her and, when they're alone, pulls out her stun gun and points it at Jones's head. She explains that she's been thinking about the fact that Jones is the only one who's supposedly had any contact with the SWAT team, and now it looks as if they're not actually coming at all. Jones has brought the team here for some unexplained, but probably undesirable, reason. At the same time, an offscreen voice refers to Jones as "Cebus," and the Chief, who's trying to contact headquarters to confirm the SWAT team, finds that his cell phone has no signal. Being a quick thinker, he orders Flores and Barnes back into their squad car and tells them to drive away until they can get a cell phone signal and then call for help.

Meanwhile, the offscreen voice comes onscreen; he is a man with a dog's head. Cho correctly guesses that his gang name is Canis. He's carrying a machine gun, and he points it at Cho, but she points out that she's right next to Jones/Cebus and he'll probably hit her, too, if he fires. Jones agrees, but manages to kick the stun gun out of Cho's hand. Then we see Reed's new arm with something coming out of the aperture on top. It turns out to be a smoke bomb, which makes it impossible for Canis to see to aim. Cho takes the opportunity to jump out from the smoke cloud, knock Canis down, and run around a corner. Jones looks for the source of the smoke bomb and finds Reed. "Reed! It's me!" she says. "I really wish it wasn't," he replies as he punches her. She's disappointed that he found out, because she was hoping to keep dating him after tonight. She thinks he's "pretty hot."

Meanwhile, Canis uses his improved dog-like sense of smell to locate the police car in which Flores and Barnes are speeding away. He radios to the rest of the gang, "I thought you were taking care of the other cops," but they tell him contemptuously to shut up. However, Taurus is on the scene, and he jumps on the car, punching Flores (who's driving) through the windshield. Canis and Tigris have Chief Bahia cornered, but higher-ranking police officers get real guns, so they can't just rush him. Tigris has a gun, too, but she's arguing with Canis instead of using it, until the boss, Hircus, whom we met remotely in the Alter computer chat in the previous track, arrives. "Hircus," it turns out, means "goat." This Hircus, being male, could also be called a buck. Bucks have horns. We don't quite see enough of Hircus's head to tell if he has horns before the track ends.

Sound Bite
Barry, the prosthetologist, is eating an ice cream cone while talking on the phone. He has called a patient to check whether their new arm is working well. We know Reed just got a new arm, maybe he's the one Barry is calling? That becomes even more likely when he asks, "How about the weapons? Working well?" but then in the last panel we discover that his patient is actually Gear. Barry is working both sides of the fence.

After that come two pages of "the KB crew" answering fan questions. First comes 42, who explains that her voice comes from a speaker in her throat and her eyes work like cameras, and is then interrupted by Steffi, who says that nobody cares about that stuff, and all one really needs to know about 42 is that her eyes blink exactly once every ten seconds, and that they follow you around "like one of those creepy paintings," by which she means a concave face painting, in which the geometry creates an optical illusion. This latter complaint is a little unfair, since human eyes follow you around, too, if you're in a conversation. Her ongoing rant degenerates from there: "Sometimes you'll come out of the bathroom and she'll be standing there like she was listening to you go..."

The second page is answers from Reed, who explains that the police stun guns were adopted three years ago, after some debate, because many officers felt they aren't effective to control criminals, while the top brass wanted to avoid civilian wrongful-death lawsuits. He goes on to say that the debate was also influenced by "the event near the end of World War Three where..." followed by a big black SPOILER stamp. He then describes how his new arm works, but that panel is pretty much entirely covered in SPOILER stamps. "So now you know!" he concludes.