Gentle Armor

Garretsville Crimes - Chapter 4

2013-10-12T08:36:00.001-07:00

I'm beginning to wonder if 'chapters' are entirely appropriate, so much as just 'parts I've decided to write and leave on my harddrive for long periods of time only to edit them early in the morning because that's how I roll'. :|

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Chapter 4

“This is why I wish they’d get the wearable camera… things,” Monica muttered from her laptop. She sat on the hood of Michael’s car, watching previews of the pictures she took of Samson and Lincoln flash by her screen in the process of uploading to the city’s evidence server. “We could be focusing on the inside of the damn place instead of waiting for the crappy internet to clean out my camera.”

Michael was leaning back on the car nearby, watching the paramedics as they finally closed up and got ready to leave. “If I’m honest, I think it’s less about not wanting the cameras, and more about budget. They don’t really have a high police abuse rate here, so why put the money out?”

“It shouldn’t just be called for because the police are bad,” Monica grumbled.

Michael shrugged, his yellow jacket crinkling against itself with the motion. “Either way, they’re busy, so we need your camera for processing the scene. We can complain for resources to help reduce how much you have to do it later, yeah? Finish up, so we can go inside already.”

Technically, they could enter without the camera, but the conditions of the property and the probable severity of what they were about to find, neither Michael nor Monica wanted to leave it to chance. They could easily skip something, or get hurt, or wreck evidence accidentally without a spotter, and since they didn’t have police to spare right then, they needed that camera’s memory space to full capacity.

Monica was finally able to clear the camera with all the photos in queue and slide off the hood, leaving the laptop to process. They both headed over for the front door, then propped open by a large rock Castillo had pulled up there before leaving. Michael was rotating the arm he’d hurt when Lincoln slammed into him, but fortunately there wasn’t any real immediate damage that prevented him from moving, so he refused to go with the paramedics. He could go get it checked out later for anything long term.

Inside the home was a disaster as predicted. The open door and the busted window in the master bedroom had actually been a bit of a Godsend, because of the fact that something putrid wafted in almost curtains of scent across the small home. The cross flow of air helped alleviate it at least a little. Monica went through the main room to a small door nestled in the corner and undid the locks there to swing it open carefully. She touched as little as possible, but they needed cleaner air. “We should’ve brought masks,” she said with a snort.

Michael looked around the room, the back of his hand pressed up against his nose and mouth. “The floor looks stable and without much by way of evidence. I have masks in the car, and a black light. Do you feel safe enough to try to figure out where the smell is coming from?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Monica conceded after a look around. The furniture was raggedy, the curtains torn and dirty, the floors unclean, but all that and the trash scattered around wasn’t particularly unsafe. “Try not to get eaten going to and from the car, will you?” she then cracked, lifting the camera up so she could take a few pictures of the main room as it stood.

Michael laughed bitterly at her, considering she had been the one first in danger by Lincoln, and headed out of the house once more.

After clicking away several pictures with the high grade digital camera, Monica then headed towards the kitchen. She couldn’t tell if it was most foul there because it was on the opposite end of the house from the busted open master bedroom and front door, or because there was some sort of tangible evidence generating the smell. She gagged slightly as she went across the linoleum floor, which was crusted heavily with dry mud and various stains. First things first, she grabbed the tall, but narrow, window at the end and hoisted it open. After clicking a few pictures of the small stove, she then clicked on the overhead vent to start pulling air out.

Nothing was in the oven, much to Monica’s surprise. She half expected the head of a dog, or something. But there was nothing there, so she moved on to the microwave. That produced results as, when she popped the door open, yellow light poured down over the beige inner walls of the machine, and copper-red stains were splashed all around the interior. While Monica knew she wasn’t supposed to make conclusions without thorough testing of the evidence, she leaned down to take a couple of pictures while muttering, “Oh, I hope you were too big to be put in there alive.”

As she snapped away, Michael reappeared with cloth masks, a spray bottle and a black light. “Anything?” he asked as he held out one of the masks.

“The scent’s strongest in here,” she replied as she took the mask. The camera was left to hang around her neck as Monica took to sliding on the mask. “The microwave looks like he radiated a rat or something in it, but otherwise no. And thank God this mask filters some of it out, too.”

Michael smirked as he placed his over his face as well, although he didn’t respond as his eyes crossed over the floor. The caked mud especially caught his eye. It hadn’t rained for some time. “You know, Castillo saw a hose outside going into a vent for the crawlspace,” he said in a prompting tone.

Monica looked down at the floor as well, and it hit her, what Michael was alluding to. She held her hand out, and Michael handed her the spray bottle so she could start spraying down the floor. Within a few minutes, they had the small kitchen lit up in the black light.

Beyond the layers of dirt and crusting, the bright blue streaks were unmistakable. They led in from the main room, across the small kitchen, and then became a mess in all directions by the sink at the opposite end of the entry. Michael saw evidence of contact with the floor closest to the sink that appeared inconsistent with dragging something like a dead body. “It looks like new points of contact here,” he said as he passed the black light blindly up to Monica. “I’ve seen this when someone’s had a door slammed into them.”

“Uh, alright…” What did that even mean? She didn’t bother to clarify, however, as she watched Michael start to grope around under the cabinetry lip for something, and leaned down a bit to see what he could possibly be doing. “What are you…?”

She didn’t get her question finished when something clicked in the floor, and Michael was sliding the paneling out just a tiny bit. Just enough to clear the cabinetry lip, and then he was moving as he swung the hatch up and over. Fortunately, the nose-mouth mask helped shield him from the awful scent that had clearly been lingering down there for some time, waiting to launch out at the first person who got there. Upon opening, his eyes were struck like the vapor of onions and causing him to well up reflexively and crane his head away for the moment.

After a breather, he gestured for Monica to set the black light to the side and start taking pictures again. “He brought a body in here, forgot the swing on the door here. So, when he swung it open, he dropped the hatch on the vic,” he said as he pulled his flashlight from his back pocket. “It’s a blunt splatter that came from the top and sides of the body, with little pooling underneath the point of contact.

“Makes sense,” was Monica’s only reply. But did it, though? Did it really? Monica knew she’d be able to ask clarification later. She felt as though she was losing her mind a little with that nearly palpable smell all around them. It was sick, moist, and she knew they’d be washing it out of their hair and pours for at least a week.

Michael turned the powerful but small light on and beamed it into the area below. Answers came pretty quick about the origin of the smell, since it was right below. They both had been hoping for an animal’s body over that of a human, but found no such luck there.

Surrounded by water possibly a half a foot, maybe just a bit more, was a badly decomposed body. The skin appeared to have been the first to go, rotted free from the muscles. Possibly skinned as opposed to left to rot? Its sex was impossible to tell without better conditions to study it in, which was odd as its eyes peered up through messily half-lidded eyes to the forensic specialists standing above. Zooming in, Monica could even see that the person had rather brilliant green eyes, even beyond the hemorrhaging that had taken on a gross, brown rot.

She squatted down by Michael to take more pictures, and he put a hand on her shoulder to make sure she wouldn’t suddenly go toppling into the muck below. “You can tell they were put in here for the long haul, but I don’t get the water,” she commented. She could see the way plastic sealed the bottom and walls, holding everything like a pool, but what was the point of it?

Michael locked his teeth as he thought about it, glancing over at the microwave. He wanted to make a joke about cannibalism, but somehow, it just wasn’t funny when it looked like it was really happening. “I’ll make the call to get some help out here from Millet’s Peak so we can get it out without disturbing too much.”

Monica and Michael had dug a body or ten out of weird places—usually livestock, but a couple of bodies before too—so that wasn’t the problem. But they usually had a lot more space to collect evidence, and safer air to breathe. After all, normally pulling any type of body came from various sorts of rural country accidents. They were going to need the fire department, cranes, all sorts of things to break open the side of the house and access the body from the outside to extract it safely and with as little evidence loss as possible.

***

And that extraction took forever. Almost eleven hours, because Michael and Monica had to dress up and then sludge around in watered down body juices to get everything together that they would need before helping get the body back to the morgue next to their office. By the time they got back, Michael was all but rolling into the backseat of his car to get a little bit of sleep before he would have to proceed with the autopsy.

Monica was pretty convinced she was going to fall asleep while transferring her pictures of the house and body from the camera to her work desktop. The only thing that kept her from getting angry at Michael getting shuteye was the fact that Monica technically didn’t have to be there for the autopsy. They ran two suspended cameras and a voice recorder as witnesses that Michael spoke to so he could focus on his work in peace as he preferred.

However, as though being hand delivered from God, Deputy Vince Castillo arrived, dropping a cup of coffee on her desk for her. “Since that looks boring enough that you could sleep to it,” he remarked as he stood beside her with his own cup.

“No kidding,” Monica sighed, turning in her seat to face him. Even her hazel eyes showed the exhaustion she was feeling. She scooped the cup along the way and blew into it to cool it down a tiny bit. “Honestly, if they just budgeted out enough money for me and Michael to get new computers, it’d speed our work up. But they’re insisting on working them until they explode.”

Castillo snorted. “I’m not even quite sure how to work even a quarter of the programs you two do,” he commented, eyes lazily fixed over Monica’s shoulder as each uploaded picture flicked on by. The police of Garretsville didn’t have much reason, usually, to deal with any technology that wasn’t in their cars. Office staff, the coroner’s office, and the daily deliveryman were constantly being lured in to help them, instead. “So, what kind of initial assessment has Hays obtained when looking over the victim before he died in the parking lot?”

Monica hummed while taking a drink of her coffee. It was bitter, all black, but she said nothing to Castillo. He always seemed to forget that she liked some sort of creamer in there, but his gestures were always appreciated. “The victim is female based on bone and musculature. We’re processing her dental records right now, but she looks young, or at least well-kept based on her teeth,” she presented. She pulled up a separate program that would update a slideshow of the photos without disrupting her slowly flipping through them. “When we were observing her in there, we suspected that the lack of skin was a cause of the human decay that made up the pooling of the basement, but when we got her back here for initial observation, she still had skin on and behind her ears.”

“You didn’t notice it there?” Castillo asked. He sounded a bit shocked, if only because the duo was normally far more observant than that.

“We sort of did, but we didn’t want to clean her ears of all that gunk until we could properly process and pack the samples of what we cleaned off.”

“And you were pretty shaken,” Castillo added, in a tone that said he just remembered that himself.

Monica shrugged passively, having decided to take her bruises and stow away the whole attack on her side for another time. Possibly with a therapist.

“Hey, wait,” Castillo said, leaning over her shoulder more. He reached out and pointed at the screen when Monica halted flipping through the scene photos. “…can you go back a couple, then forward?”

“Sure.” Monica obliged, counting to five as she flipped two shots back, then two shots forward. As she did so, Castillo’s finger migrated to the eyes and he asked for her to do it again once she was finished. It was after the second time that she started to see what Castillo was seeing. She started a pattern of flipping through the three images over and over again.

The angle of the shots was almost identical to each other, with Monica having moved herself just slightly in each. She’d been doing slow, progressive circles around the body to make sure she hadn’t missed a thing.

She had been standing over the body at the head, taking pictures straight down on the face at that point. The chest muscles could be seen in the shot, raw and tattered in some places. The muscles and veins of the neck were nearly non-existent, which they were assuming, on first glance, was the injury that killed her. Her jaw hung open and slightly to the side, the damage spanning high enough to cut at the jaw hinge’s tendons.

None of that was what mattered right then, however. They found themselves staring at the victim’s green eyes, so remarkably intact. Half-lidded and cloudy as they were, their condition was amazing. And so too was the fact that it appeared as though they changed position in those three images. Those bright green disks appeared to be fixated on the camera itself, observing. Watching from behind a curtain of death and waiting for the opportunity to jump out at her.

Monica and Castillo stayed silent, not wanting to speak since they were both reasoning in their minds that Monica hadn’t moved that much, though that was the first time it seemed like the victim’s eyes had changed position to follow her instead of remaining still as one would believe. Though, it was likely they weren’t ready to discard exactly what they were seeing after what happened with Brad Lincoln. The doctors were still trying to reason out what they witnessed there.

On a hunch, to dispel what they were thinking about, and knew they were on the same brain wave, Monica went much further into the large number of photos for when she was by the victim’s side. She figured it’d be a good way to dispel their worries, but any lower would have shown her chin only.

The victim’s eyes were a bit wider then, still fixed on the camera. It looked as though she’d been disrupted from some sort of deep slumber, and was just watching a visitor at her bedside.

“What the hell is going on?” Monica asked, rhetorically, her voice cracking as she spoke.

“That isn’t exactly normal, is it?” Castillo confirmed, sounding as disturbed as Monica was.

Monica managed to get out a shake of her head. She would have spoken, but her words caught in her throat as a soft tapping sound broke through the current silence in the air. They both looked towards the open office door, which went directly into the morgue. The tapping was light, and periodic with several seconds in between each. Tapping, clicking, like fingernails on metal.

The two looked at one another in silence, listening to that clicking. It was as though they were each waiting for the other to offer to go see first. Several breaths later, Castillo set his mug down on Monica’s desk and started for the door. His hand went to his holster, thumb flicking open its secure strap. He wasn’t sure what dots Monica was connecting, but for him, there had been way too many odd cases they’d worked recently to not just give that extra bit of effort. He just hoped to God it wasn’t what his mind, admittedly weighted from being a horror movie fan, was conjuring up for him on the way.

Garretsville Crimes - Chapter 3.2

2013-04-17T06:44:00.001-07:00

NOTE: I'm trying to get back to writing this. The first like... six paragraphs have been sitting on my computer since just after posting the last chapter.

It's kind of sad. :(

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Chapter Three

Part Two

Michael Hays wasn’t as much a rural sort as his chosen town of dwelling may have suggested. The house he lived in was closer to the two street blocks that constituted Garretsville’s downtown area, and had a yard he managed fairly regularly. If he couldn’t do it himself, he had a kid a few houses away willing to do the work for ten dollars. It took less than an hour to complete, the kid was thirteen, so it all worked out.

After returning to the office (as much of an office as it was), Monica shooed him away with the promise that she’d call after she was done processing the evidence for him.

Michael went off begrudgingly, and ended up standing and staring at his front lawn, trying to debate whether he should sleep as he was ordered, or if he should trim the lawn. He didn’t do that the last time, so maybe…

The sound of a fairly large truck caught his attention as it pulled to a stop next door. That house had been uninhabited for some time, so hearing someone pulling up to it was noticeable, to say the least. He was surprised to see a woman around his own age dropping out, unaccompanied, and headed for the front door with a set of keys. He couldn’t exactly justify why he was surprised, except that most people in Garretsville were rarely in his and Monica’s age range. They usually left around Jessica Kimball’s age, and returned in their forties or fifties.

It was a very geriatric place.

Michael shook it off and went across his yard and into… hers, he supposed. “Hey, moving in?” he asked as a greeting.

The brown haired woman turned, looking at Michael as she took to messing with one particular key. “Well, trying to, but it looks like the guy I’m renting from bent the goddamn key,” she said, followed by a grunt. She then lifted the key to look at it. “There we are.” She refocused on Michael then. “Neighbor?”

“Yeah. Right here.” Michael gestured over his shoulder, then went towards her, holding out his hand. “Michael Hays. It’s nice to meet you.”

She hopped down the porch stairs, which bent even under her weight, mostly because she wore heavy and well-worn boots under equally-worn jeans. She took Michael’s hand with a confident, firm grasp. “Melaney Sykes,” she said. “Call me Mel. Nice to meet you as well. I’d offer you to come in, but I’m sure I don’t even have a fridge in there.” The faintest hint of a Southern drawl was becoming apparent the longer she spoke.

Michael grinned when he saw Mel grinning herself, and looked ready to reply when his phone started to ring. He pulled it out to look at the caller ID. “Ah, I’m sorry, it’s work,” he excused himself with a step backwards.

Mel smirked and nodded, going to key into her house to take a look around. “Come find me when you’re done, neighbor.”

After a double take, and a smirk, Michael answered the call and placed his phone to his ear. “What’s up?” he asked. He already knew it was Monica.

“Prints are back. We’re definitely looking at it being Brad Lincoln,” Monica said. “A couple of officers ran prints on all workers, just to make sure we didn’t have an inside job. Nothing in the placement of their prints onsite makes sense for someone being a partner to this.”

“What?” Michael asked, at least half rhetorically since it slipped from disbelief. He ran his free hand through his light brown hair and shook his head. “But, Monica, I told you what I thought of that one.”

“And I agree with you,” Monica said in her normal, cool voice. “Based on what you know, it’s not right. But they’ve been poking around people on nearby properties because he’s not home and hasn’t been at all, and apparently he’s gotten very erratic. He won’t talk to anyone most the time, even when they greet him or something directly, and when he does speak, it’s to yell about obscure things. He yelled at a neighbor recently because his dogs were too quiet.”

“Too quiet?”

“Yeah. And get this: one of them went missing not too long after. The dog’s collar was found on Lincoln’s property. Neighbor took a picture with his cell phone. So they’re getting a search warrant since he’s still not there. Do you want to be in on this?”

“Jesus. Yeah. I’ll get my kit built back up and be there shortly.”

He shook his head and released the call with Monica. He turned to look in the direction of his new neighbor’s door. So much for time off, which he hadn’t actually been looking forward to until seeing he had someone who could potentially be an age matched friend. Again, they were rare.

He headed to the door and leaned in to look around the empty house. “Mel?” he called.

“Yeah?” she responded as she swung into view from the furthest end of the entry hall.

“I’m sorry, I’d love to get to know you, but… like I said, that work. I have to go. But look, if you need any help moving things in, I’m off tomorrow,” he offered. “And I have a fair policy on child labor that I can invoke for a third pair of hands.”

Mel gave him a weird but humored look, before just laughing and nodding. “I understand, Michael. Thank you for the offer, I’ll let you know.”

Michael nodded with a relieved smile. That was the upside to meeting new people: while things are fresh and new, no one questions when things were cut off short. One could easily imagine that Michael had to call off a lot with his job. Well, not as much as if he worked in a larger city, but since he helped with a wide variety of things from robberies, animal death, abuse situations, and of course the required autopsies, he was pretty busy, even with Monica at his side. He was getting the next day off, one way or another. He was tired, and he needed to make nice with the new neighbor. Garrettsville was far too small to fight with people if one could help it.

***

Brad Lincoln’s place was not something Michael would expect from the son of a prosecuting attorney. Normally kids of high ranking officials were determined to make their parent in power look good. But the property and home both were a disaster of abandoned cars, rotting side buildings and sheds, and debris scattered all over the place. There was even what looked to be half a cigar shop ‘Indian’ statue leaning on the wall of his brittle patio.

Vince Castillo stepped up first, waving his backup and the two then-investigators to the crime scene to step back. The patio squeaked painfully under his weight and he looked to the three accompanying him. “Just… stay put. Stay right there. I don’t feel like crashing into a possible lunatic’s under-porch or crawlspace.”

The three nodded, and he went to knock on the door. Two knocks, and then he listened. He heard something he would later describe as tableware knocking against itself. Castillo lifted an eyebrow and looked back at his partner, Officer Eric Samson. He gestured with his hands to have him go find the back door, pistol drawn. Samson nodded and jogged that way. Castillo turned back to the door, just in time to see a figure dart past, causing him to jerk a bit from the unexpected sight.

He swung his fist up to the door’s glass and banged on it, his other hand over his gun. “Brad Lincoln! It’s the Sheriff’s Department! We need to ask you a few questions!”

He looked back to Michael and Monica, nod-gesturing for them to return to the car. It was all rather eerie, and feeling increasingly dangerous. Neither Monica nor Michael were known for their skills in high stress and high endurance situations, so they obeyed the head nod. They would only get in the way if the situation got out of hand in a confrontation between Lincoln and the police.

When observing the house itself, a small thing that was once lovely, there were security bars formed with floral printing on every window. Clearly a woman’s touch, since apparently Lincoln living there cause the place to look like a riot streamed through and trashed the whole area. And it was because of those bars that Castillo believed the doors were the only problem areas. He’d looked around for a crawlspace escape, and it was bolted shut.

Unfortunately, the Deputy was very wrong in believing that to be the case. A large sound of something ripping out of the house was followed by the sound of metal slamming into rocks and concrete. Somehow, Lincoln had literally shoved all his strength into the bars of the master bedroom and caused the heavy, industrial bolts to strip clean out of their holes. It was followed with him clamoring out and going at a dead run at Monica and Michael.

Michael attempted to get in front of Monica, something he figured she would punish him for at a later, lighter date as he did it, but Lincoln had other ideas. His hands wildly slapped Michael to the side with such an unusual force that he lost his balance with his temple and ears being stuck several times and his arm being hit hard enough, it almost felt dislocated. The force overall was too great, and he just hit the ground.

Monica shrieked out as Brad Lincoln grabbed her with hands that were crusted over with blood, and he ran back to slam her into the car. Castillo was already there, gun trained and shrieking threats Michael couldn’t make out much of. Something of drop the woman, don’t let things get worse than they are, the like. He was joined soon enough by Samson.

What Michael could absolutely not hear were the things Lincoln was saying and doing to Monica. He looked at the woman with a look most crazed, only amplified by the hemorrhaging of his eyes. Normally a green-brown, the colors blurred in the midst of that deep and solid red to look gold. “I needed you for the collection,” he seethed out. “Perfect dish.” His eyes ran over her eyes, and then down to her collar bones.

“Wh-What?” Monica stammered. She knew damn well that the police had to round to a position that was safe to shoot him at, and they continued to hurl demands to let her go. If they could just get around to see that he had no weapons… “Collection? Dish?”

Lincoln either knew exactly what Monica was doing, or he was so deranged at that point that he didn’t care. Either way, he reeled back a bit and then slammed forward, throwing her hard into the car at her legs. He shoved his body into it, and caused Monica to scream. Shriek, actually, because the force was so great that she swore she felt her knees break.

That was enough. The officers ran for Lincoln, not wanting to risk anything, and Samson threw his arm around Lincoln’s back while Castillo worked on trying to wrench his arms back and work him off of Monica. He was ridiculously strong.

Lincoln tilted his head at Monica at the two men pulling on him, before snapping his mouth open wide. Snapping described it perfectly, as his mouth appeared to unhinge like a snake’s. His teeth, while normal in shape, appeared enlarged. Swollen. That, on top of his tongue appearing to have layers like one observed when zooming in on a hummingbird’s with a microscope, caused Monica to scream again in sheer terror. She had seen a dead body with a broken jaw before, but it didn’t look at all like that.

Her scream didn’t perform much of an alarm, as he tilted his head down and bit into Samson’s arm. With that jaw as wide as it was, and those teeth so big, his mouth almost entirely wrapped over Samson’s forearm. Samson yelled out in pain, his knees buckling as he tried to get free. He used his free hand to reach overhead and start digging into Lincoln’s eyes as a means of getting free. There were three witnesses and the dashboard cams to speak for him if the massive wound on his arm didn’t.

As the fight went on, Michael was frantically digging in his kit (albeit a bit dazedly, so he was pulling things out and just throwing them to the ground). Most the things he had in there were proper for what they thought they were going to see: trace evidence, photographic evidence, possibly shoe prints, clothes collection for DNA, the like. But he carried sedatives in his case after the children from a while back, Sandy and Bobby. They were strong sedatives, and he carried them to help if they ran into that situation ever again in order to protect the victim from trauma.

Though that situation haunted him, he didn’t want to forget it, and he hoped it was about to pay off. Hands trembling as he got the syringe and bottle out to dispense into the syringe, he heard Samson screaming for help while Castillo yelled, “Why isn’t that stopping him?!”

Monica’s legs gave out on her once Lincoln was no longer fully supporting her, so her assistance was out. Michael shot up to his feet and stumbled around to take position in front of her again. By that point, Lincoln’s face was a mass of blood and gore. Samson’s arm was in shreds. Lincoln’s eyes were gouged downward from the bottom, likely ripping them free even though they hadn’t fallen out. At the very least, they were crushed to a point that they had little effect.

Who could do that much damage and take that damage? Judging from Castillo’s side of things, Lincoln’s arms were twisting in ways they shouldn’t as he held them together under his one arm, his other hand busy grabbing at Lincoln’s lower jaw and attempting to wrench it free. “He’s—like a damn dog with lockjaw!” he strained out.

Michael hurried around to Lincoln’s back, once assured he was too busy right then for Monica, and slammed the syringe into the back of his neck, squeezing it in. He wasn’t concerned with getting it right, other than missing the spinal cord and brainstem. He just wanted to get it in and pray that it’d work where physical violence failed.

After a moment of sheer dread watching Samson scream and fight, Castillo desperately try to help while radioing for an ambulance, and Monica on the ground but trying to stand with the help of the car, Lincoln’s body went slack and he toppled to the ground. He wasn’t fully unconscious, but at least he was stopped. Unfortunately, he took Samson with him. His mouth had released Samson, but the weight and Samson’s body breaking into shock had him getting dragged down with Lincoln.

Michael was thankful for the devolving violence, stepping around to stoop down and look at Samson’s arm. “Let me see!” he ordered, pulling Samson to the side so Castillo could handle his attacker.

Samson sort of rolled with Michael’s goading, flopping onto his back and fixing his eyes up at the sky. Looking at his arm was driving him to a panicked sickness, so he just opted to look skyward as Michael tended to him.

“Jesus,” breathed Michael as he looked over the damage to his arm. It was like the primary biting was done strictly by Lincoln’s molars, causing the damage to primarily crushing and spreading across bone and harder muscles. There were obvious signs of damage from the canines and incisors, but the level at which Lincoln opened his mouth…

Castillo was radioing for emergency services. Michael looked to Monica, who was stumbling around on her jolted legs. “Monica! Pictures!” She was a strong woman, so he knew better than to ask her if she was alright until everything had settled down.

“Right,” she rambled out, fishing the camera bag on her shoulder to her front.

Pictures needed to be taken of Samson’s arm, then Lincoln’s mouth. Neither one of them wanted to hear that it was impossible because the dashboard cameras on the police car was in the wrong place and couldn’t see the actual injury get delivered. Lincoln’s father could easily try to deflect the case. The man was a beast at his job, but also very keen on favoritism. A good man, but he had those flaws like anyone else, only they impacted people more when it came to legal issues. The District Attorney, repeatedly appointed Elizabeth Marks, wasn’t nearly as invested in her position as a leader in her older years, so she went off the advice of her two attorneys more often than not. Evidence would be key.

They just had no idea what they were about to find inside the house once Samson and Lincoln were taken by emergency care services. Lincoln would be subject to blood tests, to a rabies test, and to drug and psychological tests before he’d be admitted to jail.

As he played the role of first responder to Samson’s wounds, Michael had all but forgotten about his so sought for day off.

Preliminaries 04

2012-12-30T20:47:00.003-08:00

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NOTES: Due to having shoulder surgery, the following was written using a Livescribe Echo Smartpen, and editted with one hand and painkillers :D so it's not perfect, but I've already warned you lovely people that I'm writing for fun. If I were to get these compiled and (likely self-) published, these would be cleaned up and holes between chapters filled better. Thanks for reading always!

Preliminaries 04

The name left on that napkin meant very little to Nalia. The warning to avoid everyone with the last name DeCleric was bizarre in itself. How in the world would she find Macrae DeCleric if she couldn't speak to his family? It seemed like a wild goose chase, considering. Instead of stressing it right then, Nalia decided to take Dennick Sharpe's other advice: get someone who knew "all sides" of her to come to Desai. Her first choice had been Hammond Shuu. However, he was so busy with his new art gallery, he wouldn't be available for some time. The warning to get someone who knew Nalia--all of Nalia--to help her search wasn't lost on her. So a call was made to her world. It would take a day, which Nalia would need. Red's sentencing was the day after her "dinner date", and she was awfully interested in seeing how that was going to go. She had no official role unless Thomas Frenz called on her, but she could be there to watch. She heard Desai criminal proceedings were interesting. Desai judges apparently encouraged media circuses.

And a media circus it was. Red’s sentencing was held at a place called The Court of Watchers, in the region of Cordova. No one could really say why Nalia smirked anytime anyone said that, but the word ‘Watcher’ carried a very steep weight in her world. Steeper yet in other worlds she’d heard of.

Cordova was all high end business and living, full of sweeping sky scrapers; expensive homes and shops. The Court of Watchers was just as rich and grand, made of grey and gold granite, along with massive stained glass panes telling the stories of many different worlds. Large statues telling their own stories lined a front yard and fountain that was currently filled with press and onlookers, waiting for Red's arrival.

The crowd was loud and impossible to penetrate by the average citizen or visitor. Fortunately, Nalia's travel pass could be scanned at the police line, and it told them that she had been part of the escort party that brought Red in from Earth-52C*. "Just stay to the left," warned the police officer. "You'll be escorted in with the rest of permitted personnel when it's time."

"Thank you," Nalia said politely. She nodded to the officer respectfully as she passed on by.

The police of Desai were as unique as the city itself. Their uniforms were black, heavily armored, and covered in weapons that changed from person to person. The weapons were damn intimidating. She wondered if she could make a friend in the police force to learn why the only standard weapon they seemed to have in common was their handguns.

She'd work on that once her plate was emptied.

Thomas Frenz was standing at the doors when Nalia arrived there. He offered a wave and headed to meet her halfway. "I didn't think I'd see you here," he said with a small but distracted smile.

"Oh really?" she mused. "And miss what apparently is going to be something for the record books? Even here in Desai?" She turned and gestured out to the crowds flooding in front of the Court of Watchers. The crowd was even starting to move onto the street, causing an issue with traffic.

"Well, you have a point," Frenz conceded. "You do like the big ones. I did learn a few details about standard sentencing of the guilty here that you might find interesting."

"Tell me about it?" Nalia encouraged with a smile. She did like hearing about that sort of thing, hence no questions from Frenz about her private meeting at the Travel Agency. Otherworldly procedures were good things to listen to and learn about.

Frenz went back for his spot waiting near the doors. "There is no death penalty, to start with," he said. He glanced around at the other legal officials and members of family belonging to Red's various victims. "Essentially, he will live out his days working, and the money he'd make as a free man will be dispersed amongst children or spouses of his victims."

"That's going to not amount to much, Thomas," Nalia said. Red had several hundred known victims.

''He'll likely receive a life sentence," Frenz pointed out. ''And a juggernaut like him can take on jobs that'll pay enough."

"What if there was a living victim?"

"You know, I was wondering about that," Frenz admitted. He finally looked back to Nalia. "There was a case I found while looking into it last night. About a year ago, a man attacked three people in a car out on Highway Four. Killed one, nearly killed the driver, and kidnapped the driver's sister. He had her for a year, doing all sorts of horrible things to her. Since the woman killed had no kids and was dating the driver, nothing went there. But her brother receives now about fifteen percent of what the guy's work makes, and his permanently scarred sister is basically taken care of until he dies.”

"Or she does," Nalia said with a frown. "I imagine it takes some victims to a lot to accept something from their victimizer." Post-traumatic Stress Disorder was a cruel monster in and of itself.

"Apparently, while the victimized know where the money comes from, the deposits simply say they're 'social welfare'," Frenz said, although he had nodded to Nalia's comment. "It's a pretty good system."

"It helps give reason behind Desai's amazing economy,” Nalia remarked. If there was one thing Desai was renowned for, it was that it had a very, very stable and wealthy economy. Of course, it had a diplomatic network a size unfathomable even to someone like Nalia and her people, so she was sure trade was ample. More than likely in Desai’s favor too. A place as wealthy as Desai needed to give very little to needy worlds to get them to agree to something much more.

''Our world could learn a thing or three for sure," he replied, not thinking nearly as deep about it as his employee was.

Just as Frenz said that, the two sets of large granite doors that led into the Court of Watchers opened to allow the permitted audience waiting just outside to enter. Nalia was ready to follow, but the crowd surrounding the building erupted into a louder, angrier mess than before. The police convoy toting Red to his hearing had arrived.

In Artania--hell, most of the United States where Nalia came from--Red would have likely been brought in through another entrance. It proved that they seemed to enjoy the media circus, however. The press and angry onlookers put on a scene that looked more suited for the movies than reality. Screaming, profanities, and police swarming in droves to push back the masses as Red was walked out of a heavily armored vehicle. It reminded Nalia of military-level hummers from Earth, only it was painted in the black and stark blue colors belonging to the Desai police force, along with the silver scribing that belonged to them as well.

Red was in a white jumper, his upper body encased in steel plating, lit in the seams with red lighting. It was a device to keep him under more complete control than the massive gauntlet-like shackles that the Artanian police force had used.

The group of officers wasted no time to get Red clear from the group of people amassed outside. By the time they reached the doors of the building, most the allowed audience was in and past the main lobby. Nalia was still there, however, standing straight and stoic. Red didn't miss her presence, looking at her as he passed by. He shook his head slightly, causing Nalia to wonder... a lot of things. How did he connect the dots between Nalia Inez and Naty Inanna? How did he know to warn her, when Agent Dennick Sharpe did exactly the same? Why did he even care?

Hopefully that Macrae DeCleric had the answers she was looking for. Hopefully.

In the actual courtroom, adorned with tapestries from different worlds, Red was taken to stand before a trinity of judges. Since he pled guilty, there would be no trial, simply sentencing and immediate execution of that sentencing. The lead of the trio, an older woman easily in her fifties, said nothing as cleared witnesses to the sentencing were screened for weapons and directed towards their seats, or when the attorneys for and against Red took position on each side of them. Her eyes were fixed on something hidden in front of her. Probably details on Red. He had quite the laundry list of sins.

Once all were settled and the judge on her right and left called the courtroom to order, she looked up to Red. She pulled off her reading glasses and folded her hands together in front of her. “I’ve been advised that you’ve pled guilty to all charges brought forth by MDEA and the International Criminal Proceedings Counsel,” she said. “Is this correct?”

“Yep,” Red said casually.

The judge tilted her head, curious about his frank attitude as opposed to offended. Really, it had to be something to a place where someone like Red was a celebrity through his crimes, to have him standing right there. Nalia took note of it, anyway. “Well then, let’s go over what exactly you’ve pled guilty to. Once I’ve finished, I will ask you once more to confirm. You have one chance to accept trial, or to plead guilty. Do you understand?”

“Yeah,” Red replied, still calm and casual as he looked around the massive courtroom, filled on two levels with onlookers. He looked back at Thomas Frenz and his group and winked, before returning his gaze to the judge (whose name was Jimneson, Nalia heard someone murmur behind her).

Judge Jimneson lifted a paper up, placing her glasses back over her face. “Accused Red, you stand today before the Trinity of Watchers within the Court of Watchers, accused of a multitude of crimes. These crimes include 298 counts of first degree murder, one hundred of those belonging to the category of a single case of mass murder. Thirty-two counts of mass destruction of public property, and eleven counts of destruction of private property.

“This is an inter-world offense. The worlds that have brought forth these accusations are Desai, Earth 52C-starred, Lita 1A, Polai, Earth 10A, and Earth 5B. Six worlds, and a total of 341 crimes that are not inclusive of the bundled murder sprees we could place on your ledger.”

“There’s no point, is there?” Red asked. He smirked a bit, which got the crowd of the courtroom buzzing.

Unlike Earth, the ‘Trinity of Watchers’ seemed to not care at the outburst. Jimneson folded her hands together over the desk and watched Red until the crowd quieted on their own. “No, it doesn’t. How do you plead?”

“Guilty,” Red said with a proud squaring off of his shoulders. “Read me off my punishment and toss me away in the Millial Prison.”

Jimneson seemed interested and baffled all at once. She leaned back in her seat. “We, the Trinity of Watchers, sentence you to life in prison with no alleviation from devices that restrict your abilities to a manageable degree, and you will work to support any surviving spouses and offspring of those you took from this life. This begins immediately. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” Red replied firmly, but with a slightly playful attitude that was unmistakable.

He was something else, Nalia resigned. And he was something else with apparently a point to make with her. Since the sentencing was really rather uneventful, followed by tearful statements from surviving victims of his and the survivors of his victims, Nalia was left to think about how she couldn’t wait for the next day. She had a big puzzle to figure out, and he was part of it.

***

Back at the Travel Agency, but not so she could leave Desai, Nalia found herself pacing back and forth as she waited for her friend's arrival. She was dressed in business casual clothing including a comfortable black skirt. Normally, she did slacks, but Desai was pleasant at an almost consistent 76 F.

''There she is!" a cheerful, airy voice piped from the checkpoint leading out from registering for travel passes.

So familiar was that voice, Nalia spun in the direction it came from, holding her arms out immediately for a hug. A tanned woman ran over, jumping into that hug with all the energy she always had, for as long as Nalia knew her. Chase Laine, publicly known in their world as Pangaea, was a notable and fantastic celebrity. As a teenager, she became known by the world for her powers. Fans dubbed her Earthgirl. But at twenty-eight years old, Pangaea was more mature and still fit her abilities, all based on environmental standards. She could manipulate the energy around her, and sometimes that manifested as control of fire or wind. There were other abilities too, that gave credence to the type of names she used.

Beyond all of that, she was a cheerful longtime friend of Nalia and Hammond both. She was more than happy to help. "So, any luck on looking for this guy?" she asked immediately after releasing Nalia.

"No," Nalia admitted. "Things have been happening awfully fast. I only got here two days ago."

"Jesus, two days? And all of that happened?" Chase asked as she busied with pulling up her long locks. She looked like such a superstar, glamorous and fit for the movie screen, though she couldn’t act for anything. "I could never handle all of that." She was pretty lazy at times.

''It's been hectic," Nalia sighed. She started for the exit, knowing fully well that the large duffle on Chase’s back was all that she brought with her. It took work during college, but they eventually taught Chase that she didn't need five suitcases for weekend trips.

"So, we need to try to find this Macrae DeCleric. Any idea where to even start?" Since Nalia had no time to start on her own.

"Center-City was really all that the agent said. I'm sort of hoping the way you have with people would come in handy," Nalia said. She grinned and went to loop arms with Chase, who accepted the hold with a smile.

"I see, you just want me for my glamor. You should have called Kaidan, though. He's been dying to see you.” Kaidan Fait was another of their group, and a good man from another world within their universe, much like the entire group but Chase. "The thing I'd like to know," Chase said in a considering tone, “is why you didn't pick Tony?"

"Anthony and I haven't spoken in years, Chase," Nalia said. "Longer than the two of you had been broken up."

The question about the man named Anthony was legitimate. The answer wasn't entirely so. Anthony was a public entity as Chase was. Anthony Smith, also known as Valiant Horus, was demasked the day before their high school graduation nearly eleven years prior. Since then, his abilities had grown until he became a powerhouse with literal cults worshipping him as the god Horus. Considering the situation, Chase was brighter, louder, and would be harder to detain if things were as dangerous as both Agent Sharpe and Red were making it out to be. The governments in their world had issues with Anthony that they didn’t with Chase, which would be the key to getting her help out of danger if it became necessary. Nalia just didn't believe it was solely about her and her alone. She needed to think strategically and for the safety of those she called upon. The decision to call Chase in was the smartest Nalia felt she could make.

Unfortunately for Nalia, it was a no-win situation no matter who ended up involved.

Preliminaries (series) 003

2012-11-08T02:23:00.001-08:00

{{--Previous Chapter
[Master Tag for the Preliminaries series]
Next Chapter--}}

.03

“Is there anything else I can bring you two?” their peppy waitress asked as she bounced in place.

Nalia Inez looked over at the man who asked her out to that small restaurant. When he didn’t answer, she furrowed her brow for a second, before offering a smile to the girl, no older than nineteen. “No, thank you,” she said. “We’ll wave for you if we need anything.”

“You got it!”

The waitress spirited off, leaving Nalia to look at Dennick Sharpe with scrutinizing eyes. “Are you naturally that rude?” she asked.

“Pretty much,” Dennick replied passively, not at all apologetic. He had yet to touch his food, looking more than ready to dive right in to the real reason he dragged Nalia out of her hotel room with no warning. She sighed and waved her fork-holding hand at him and he didn’t skip a beat. He leaned in, fingers of his hands lacing together in front of his face. “You really need to get out of here first chance you get.”

“First of all, why?” Nalia asked, staring at him as though he was crazy. He was an attractive human, but that was easy to get past when one was wondering what sort of insanity was buzzing around those bold blue eyes of his. “Second of all, you know why I’m here, right?”

“It really doesn’t matter,” Dennick said with a careless laugh behind it. “There’s a reason I carded you the way I did. Now repay me by getting the hell out of Desai.”

“Why—“

“Mama Naty Quilla,” Dennick interrupted.

Nalia had been holding her dinner’s fork right up until that moment. It slipped from her hand and made the very short drop to her plate. She opened her mouth to speak, but words didn’t come to her. How did he know that name? That wasn’t her name. That was her grandmother. Mama Naty Quilla was a very important woman to her, and to the people of Afiramen, but she lost her mind many years before Nalia was ever thought of. More importantly, what did she have to do with anything?

Dennick moved to sit back in his seat. “MDEA has no conflict with your home,” he said quietly. “And we don’t want one. Afiramen’s been a very strong ally of ours for years.”

“It has?” Nalia asked, her olive skin actually turning pale. He knew so much. “I don’t…”

“I know,” Dennick said. He held up a hand casually, to silently tell Nalia to stay calm. “However, there are people here that, if they find out you’re here, will want to get their hands on you. And I know who you are, and what your people will have to say about it.”

“They’ll have a hell of a time getting me,” Nalia replied, narrowing her eyes. “Are you going to explain any further? Does this have to do with Red?”

“Nothing to do with Red,” Dennick confirmed, at least. “Because you live with two identities, that prevents MDEA from protecting you directly. It’s policy to honor this sort of identity concealment. But you need to go, because these people know how to deal with someone like you.”

“I didn’t realize we were logged in your systems…” Nalia said, sounding tentative. When someone walked past, headed for the restrooms, Nalia coughed lightly into her hand and went to start eating. She hunched over the plate though. “What does this have to do with Mama Naty Quilla?”

“She never told you?” Dennick asked, lifting an eyebrow. At that point, he followed suit, scooching to the end of his seat to start eating.

“Obviously not,” Nalia bit, annoyed. The annoyance passed quickly enough and her eyes went to the plate of vegetables before her. “She didn’t speak,” she continued quietly. “Ever. No one knew why. We knew she went missing… a long time ago, shortly after my mother was born. But when she came back, she never said a word again.”

Dennick watched Nalia, tapping the end of his fork against his plate. After some time mulling over something in that confusing head of his, he set it down and reached into his coat. He produced a pen, colored pink, which baffled Nalia further. When he set it against a napkin to write, even the ink came out pink. Dennick Sharpe hardly seemed like the sort to have a pink… anything, really. Fortunately for him, Nalia had manners and she said nothing about it.

“I want you to listen to me carefully,” he started, voice low. “The name I’m writing, you need to find him. He’s very hard to pin down, but he’s in town somewhere in Center-City. Do not speak to anyone with the same last name. Only him. If you can bring in a friend who knows your other half to search on your behalf, that will be safer.” He pushed the napkin over to Nalia, his other hand tucking the pen back where it belonged. “Ask him. He’ll have your answers.”

Nalia slowly went to drag the napkin to her side completely, and then fold it for her purse. She didn’t look at the name just yet, her eyes fixed on Dennick’s. “Why are you doing all of this?”

“I’m not,” Dennick replied.

The look he gave Nalia next said a lot more than his words. The insinuation written across his face was that of a man doing what he wasn’t necessarily supposed to be doing. It was that of a man who needed to never be acknowledged for the information she was receiving. Nalia read it, loud and clear, and nodded her head. As long as Dennick proved he wasn’t leading her on a wild goose chase, she was fine by that silent direction.

“Right. So, how’s your dinner?”

***

After getting the bizarre bits out of the way, the dinner was… nice. Dennick was an interestingly manly man, Nalia noted. Cars, guns, sports. He was actually pretty charming in a fractured-around-the-edges sort of way. She learned he was part of the First Contact Branch of MDEA, which she had read about when studying about the city years ago. The FCB was responsible for initial negotiations with different worlds, often doing their best to engage the people and learn their ways to make negotiations as respectful as possible between them and Desai.

So, of course Dennick Sharpe would be charming in a unique way. He’d have to be for the kind of job he was used to. Nalia suspected that there was a whole lot more to his story than just that, however. She didn’t pry, because that would have been awkward, but no person ended up that volatile (she could see it) without there being something more to their lives. He had the demeanor of a veteran soldier rather than a government employee whose job it was to talk a lot.

Regardless of all her suspicions and guesses, their night was nice and uneventful for the hour they were out eating. She still didn’t bother with the napkin until she returned to her hotel room. She locked the room tight and went to sit on her bed to dig it out for review.

Written in a handwriting that was legible but very clearly from the hand of a chaotic man, the name ‘Macrae DeCleric’ was scrawled. The name was completely unfamiliar to her. When she factored in what Red said to her, and what Dennick was saying, Nalia’s gut told her to listen. That included getting a friend out from her homeworld to find the man. Fortunately, she knew just the person.

Garretsville Crimes - Chapter Three

2012-10-10T12:14:00.002-07:00

Note: As I’ve said, I decided to set this story in a place that I know. Garretsville isn’t an exact mirror to my current town of residence, but it’s damn close in population and types of people. For example, the butcher mentioned in the front of the chapter. I don’t believe our butcher actually runs a shop (storefront), but he does do exactly as described otherwise. I kind of feel it necessary to emphasize this since, before living here, I would’ve thought what a lot of people do: that people in towns like this are brutal like the big corporate farms. Now, granted, we have our problem people, but we’ll get to those people too. Man, this is cathartic!

Also, I had intended for this chapter to be much longer and actually complete the storyline in this chapter alone. However, before I could do this, I had a situation with a donkey and his kicking me around for half an hour, and so I'll have to conclude this next week. :(

{{--Previous Chapter
[Master Tag for Garretsville Crimes series]
Next Chapter--}}

Being a northern desert area that had been long irrigated and toiled into farmland, Garretsville gave way for some pretty miserable summers. It was August by then, the worst month of the year for the entire area, Millets Peak included. It easily breached over a hundred degrees on a daily basis. The only thing they had going for them was the fact that it was a dry heat. The only real humidity came from the lengthy irrigation canals that spanned through the entirety of Garretsville.

That day was like any other, involving Michael getting into his car and cursing himself for forgetting that he needed to take his car in to get the air conditioner fixed. Since his drive to the office was only about five minutes, depending on traffic, he forgot pretty easily. He usually left work after sun fall when the night was in the sixties and seventies, and being a town of less than four thousand in population, his job rarely called for him to leave the office.

So, imagine his surprise when, halfway to the office, his cell phone began to ring. He answered after the caller ID flashed with the Sheriff’s name. “Hey, John, what’s up?” he asked.

“Can you meet me over at Kimball’s butcher house over on Register Lane?” John asked. “There was a pretty huge break-in and, as I’m sure you can imagine, we have blood evidence that you’d be better at processing for us.”

Michael made a face because that was an extra fifteen minutes of hanging his head out the window due to the heat and hoping a wasp didn’t hit him in the eye, but… “Yeah, absolutely. I’ll be right there.”

***

Harold and Jessica Kimball ran a friendly little butcher business. They had a very clean, warm and incredibly country storefront that even had a place to sit in because Jessica, Harold’s daughter, and her staff made in-store lunches and brunches for customers as well as retailing fresh meat. Out back, Harold and his staff brought in animals for kill and slaughter. Believing in quick kills, they tended to be popular with the people because Harold was a very, very good shot and animals didn’t suffer with him.

Harold and Jessica were kind people. Michael had stopped in a few times for lunch, even. He wasn’t much of a cook, so it was lunch and not much else. When he got there, Jessica waved to him as she held a frown on her face. She then took to rubbing her dark hands together, pacing a little.

Michael frowned in turn, juggling his two scene investigation bags, as he headed over to her. “Hey,” he said. “I’m sorry for what happened.”

“Dad’s really upset,” she said. Her dark eyes were puffy. “They killed one of our dogs, we just found out.”

“What?” Michael breathed, his frown deepening.

She sniffed, shaking her head and closing her eyes. “God. The Sheriff and his Deputy were, ah, I think you call it ‘isolating the area’ and opened one of our storage closets, where we keep the floor cleaning products for the back. Deedee was in there, and… dad’s trying to keep me away, but I want to see her.”

Jessica was in her early twenties, and hadn’t exactly chosen a life of looking at dead bodies in the same scope as Monica and Michael. Harold was probably just trying to protect her from nightmares. Michael tossed one of his bags under an arm, using his freed hand to gently squeeze her shoulder. “Tell you what. Lemme see what happened to Deedee. If it’s not too bad, I’ll see if I can’t convince Harold to let you back to see her, okay?”

“…and if it is bad?” she asked, looking at him.

Michael hesitated, but decided that he’d offer the truth to her. “I’ll come out and tell you why you shouldn’t see her.”

Jessica sighed and nodded, looking down at her hands. “Thank you, Michael.”

He smiled and nodded, though both were small, and headed for the back as Deputy Vince Castillo appeared. Castillo was a good guy. Young, so a bit fresh still, but he handled himself with the same maturity that Michael came to expect from Monica. Really, Garretsville had some damn fine people working crimes, even if they only had four cops and two medical examiners that acted like detectives voluntarily when more confusing things came the cops’ ways. It saved money in bringing in outside resources from Millets Peak or further. Michael and Monica came highly trained, so they fit the bill often (and kind of enjoyed getting to do ‘cop things’ like the people on television got to).

“Jessica says we got a victim,” Michael said as he stepped through to the cold, massive meat locker that stood between the actual slaughterhouse and the storefront.

“Yeah,” Castillo said as he went to guide Michael through the freezing area. “In the actual slaughtering area.” He walked over to the thick door that separated the meat locker from the slaughterhouse. “The lock was broken, but here’s the weird thing. There’s blood all over this, but the meat’s frozen. Shouldn’t be bloody. And the blood spatter around the dog is showing that it was killed after this part of the theft came and went.”

Michael set his bags down and went to pull on rubber gloves. He grabbed a bag of evidence tags, along with his camera, and went to look over the door itself. He didn’t say anything, but Castillo didn’t take it personally, the focused look on Michael’s face saying enough about why. There were no points of bursting blood spatter, which sounded a lot more violent than what it was. It was just the area of origin for the bleeding to start.

“It didn’t start as an injury on the door, it looks like,” Michael rambled quietly. “I mean, I could be wrong, but the amount of blood means there should be a visible point of injury.” The blood pattern showed where they pawed through the door and back out, swinging their hands as they went. They were likely rushing.

He collected pictures of the door on all sides, and the floor inside the meat locker, before stepping out into the hot slaughterhouse. For a moment, he paused and thought about how much it was going to suck to have to do that again. The human body didn’t like going from one extreme temperature to the next, after all. He then shook his head and went to move on to the rest of the blood spatter.

“The injury definitely happened inside the locker,” he said as he used the digital flash on his camera light a flashlight. John and Harold stood off by about fifteen feet, and turned to look and listen to Michael as he spoke distractedly. “There are no real conflicts to the landing points, like footsteps. There’s a little, but not repeated. That only happens if the blood was crossed once.” He paused and looked over to Harold. “You protected this place from people stepping through it, didn’t you, Harold?”

“I knew you guys would want to see it as it is,” Harold confirmed, pursing his lips.

“That helps a lot. Did you see anything outside that caught your attention?”

“I was just telling the Sheriff here, Deedee’s chain… I normally don’t leave her here, but she didn’t want to go home, so I came in early today. Her chain was snapped right apart. She was a border collie, they don’t have that kind of strength.” He spoke with a few breaks in his vocal strength. He was clearly upset, likely blaming himself.

“Where is she?” Michael asked, frowning.

“I’ll take you,” John said as he went to start walking over, navigating the scene carefully.

Michael was noticing that John and Castillo had taken good care in trying to mark as much evidence as they could see it. They did a damn good job of it too. Michael wasn’t looking too closely as he followed John, but he wasn’t seeing anything missed for how he was looking.

John pushed open the door as Michael turned his back to the storage closet in order to take a wide shot of the scene in the actual slaughterhouse proper. He didn’t want to cross over the evidence any more than necessary, so he wanted to get it out of the way before he forgot.

Then, he turned.

…and choked a bit.

No wonder Harold was keeping his daughter away. Michael started to take pictures of the scene, squatting down over it to take a close look. “Jesus, it looks like someone stuck her lower body in a blender,” he murmured.

“That’s the exact same damn thing I said,” John replied with a snort.

Michael hung the camera around his neck and went to reach out and touch the dog’s neck. Since Harold mentioned her chain was broken, but it was far too strong for her…

“Her neck’s broken. She most likely died whenever she was ripped off her chain. We have tire marks out there?” Michael asked. Running over a body would have created the force to rip her off the chain, and the motion needed to destroy her lower half.

“There are, but not around her area,” John said. “Vince thought of it shortly after Harold mentioned where she was kept.”

Michael shook his head. “We should get Leah Quinton out here,” he said, referring to one of a few local veterinarians, but the only one Michael personally liked. The others took advantage of the people who didn’t have the ability or privilege to travel far for vet care. “She’ll obviously be able to tell you more about this body than I can, but I suggest you tell her what she can expect.” He went to stand up again, slowly backing away from the closet so it could be closed. “I’ll talk to Jessica and see if she’s had any weird customers after getting more photos around here and trying to lift some prints. I’ll get a sample of the blood too.”

John agreed to that, heading back over to get more information from Harold.

***

“I’m guessing it’s… pretty bad, isn’t it?”

Jessica was seated at a table in the storefront, across from Michael. She stirred one of the cups of coffee she brought out for them and just looked discouraged. Michael was glad she wasn’t someone who fought him on the matter. He wasn’t someone who liked to keep people away from their right to see the body of a loved one—human or animal—unless he felt the sight was too horrific for them to handle. The best part about living in Garretsville meant if a body needed to be identified, there was no shortage of people who could be chosen from. Small towns and all.

“If it’s any consolation, I don’t think she suffered at all,” Michael said softly.

“What happened?” Jessica asked. She looked at him with a frown that reflected in her dark brown eyes. “Please.”

Regarding her for a moment, Michael decided he ought to let her have that much. “Something ripped her clean from her chain. Snapped her neck in the process. It would’ve been so quick, she never knew what hit her.”

Jessica let out a soft sigh of relief. It wouldn’t help with the loss, but it would help knowing the animal she clearly loved didn’t hurt. “Thank you,” she breathed.

Michael nodded. He went to take a drink of his own coffee cup, and then looked back to Jessica. “I have to ask. This was a theft as well… have you had anyone strange come in here recently, or have you seen anyone strange lurking around the building?”

Pursing her lips, Jessica thought about it as she wiped a few tears trying to break free from her eyes. “Ah. No… well, there has been Brad Lincoln, but he’s not a stranger. He’s just been acting strange.”

Brad Lincoln. He was the son of one of the town prosecuting attorneys. A young man, he lived on his own in one of the lesser touched regions of Garretsville. He was a good young man, though. Michael tended to speak to him every year at the annual Christmas party for town employees and their families. His life didn’t go without the rumor mill from older people in town, and he knew it, so it tended to push him further into an antisocial state.

“Does he come here a lot?” Michael asked.

“Oh, all the time, to buy fresh meat. I think he must have his own walk-in freezer, because he stockpiles. But he also comes a lot for lunch and to talk,” Jessica said, smiling fondly. They were about the same age, so of course they’d get along. “Normally he’s really social when he comes in. Really sweet, friendly, even though he speaks really quietly. But the last few weeks, he’s been… he doesn’t want to talk. He just comes in, hands a paper to me with his order, pays far too much for it, and leaves before I can give him any change to pull around back.”

Michael nodded to acknowledge what she was saying. However, it didn’t fit the proper profile for someone frantically breaking in and stealing meat. Maybe for killing a dog, but the dog and the theft were both connected. There was no question about that in the slightest. He’d keep Brad in mind, however. If he was starting to change in personality that dramatically, something else might happen.

Michael decided to leave Jessica alone about it, aside from saying, “Well, think about anyone else too that might have been suspicious. I’ll look into Lincoln in the meantime, alright?”

Jessica agreed to that, and Michael shifted the conversation to more general things. She’d been through enough and he needed to wait until he could process the evidence, especially any lifted fingerprints. Really, it was a simple enough situation, they just needed a name.

Garretsville Crimes: Chapter 2

2012-10-03T16:19:00.001-07:00

I may start considering posting a little more frequently. We'll see!

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It was frustrating that all they had were base facts and otherwise obscure ideas on what ‘could be’ the cause for what happened to those children. There were many theories taped around the small medical examination office that sat just through a door from their equally small morgue.

A sociopathic pedophile, disorganized, chaotic, perhaps a first time killing? Maybe an occult ordeal? A sociopath’s first kill would have given some sort of evidence. For a group affair… that was the theory of cause that Michael was most fond of, and it suggested the possibility of experienced members coaching on how to avoid leaving evidence. It was a small town, and Michael was under no delusions regarding the type of people who could be living secondary lives behind closed doors. He grew up there, and even had a few names he recommended to the Sheriff. John Thomas came from a neighboring town, a bit smaller than Garretsville and on the state border, called simply Lincoln. Actually a county, most the residents there just called it the town of Lincoln because they thought it sounded better. Fortunately, it had a strong Masonic presence there, so John listened to Michael’s recommendations for starting points. He just knew small towns were no exception to ‘secret socities’.

Garretsville also connected up to even smaller towns, nestled into the mountains they sat at the foot of. Perhaps someone travelled from there? What about the much larger Millets Peak?

Monica finally asked Michael if she could head off to get some sleep. A thirty-one hour shift was making the woman weary. He easily forgot how hard long days could be when one was just starting out. Even long night hauls in college didn’t prepare someone for the extended work hours the real world provided in their area of expertise. He agreed she should, dismissing her suggestion for him to do the same. Just as well, really. The minute Monica left the basement-based morgue was the minute the Sheriff was calling for him to get to the hospital down the road.

The children were talking.

***

Not only were they talking, but they looked… well, very good, considering. They were heavily drugged, yes. Their insides were being worked through machines recently developed to help with internal organ substitution, but they were cheerful and moving, and the surgeons were perplexed and already arranging for their peers in more advanced facilities to come in, to investigate what was happening with their bodies. Michael overheard a nurse mention someone from Desai was interested in seeing them. That was beyond interesting to Michael. A lot of technology for medical advancements came from that place as part of the agreements made with leaders around the world. They were above and beyond anything doctors had access to in Michael’s home. And with all that place had seen, were those two really that unique?

Regardless of all of it, however, the police needed to know how they even got to the side of Second Street in the first place. Insisting that their uniforms were scaring the children, the parents wanted someone gentler. That was where Michael came in.

He had the presence of a big brother when he wanted to. His jacket was a military jacket given to him by his grandfather, who served in World War 2, and underneath was a simple button up and jeans. He was casual, his reading glasses pushed up on top of his red-brown hair, short, styled and soft.

“Hey there,” he greeted politely to the children as he went to sit between them.

“Hello,” Bobby said with a polite smile. His eyes looked so vacant, in direct contradiction to his smile. “What’s your name?”

“I’m Doctor Michael Hays. You can call me Mike though,” Michael said gently. He looked to Sandy. “Is that okay?”

The girl nodded. Bobby spoke again. “Sandy’s a little shy.”

“That’s okay,” Michael said sympathetically. “You two have been through an awful lot. You’re allowed to be shy.” He offered Sandy an encouraging little smile and wink. The corner of her mouth twitched, but that was the only reaction he got. So, he looked back to Bobby. “Bobby, I have some questions to ask you. I need help and you’re the only people who can give it to me. Is that okay?”

Bobby thought about it for a moment, a very brief moment, before nodding and smiling again. “Sure. I dunno if I can answer a lot, though.”

“Thank you. That’s okay. Just do your best for me.” He held up a notebook and a pen. “I’ll just write what you say here so I don’t forget.” Bobby smiled and nodded his permission. Michael smiled back and prepared to write. “So… how do you two know each other?”

“We’re neighbors. We walk home from school together every day.”

“Do you remember what happened at all yesterday?” Michael didn’t want to waste time, for as gentle and slow he was taking it at the same time. There was still that fear that whatever was keeping them alive just then would suddenly crash in on him and they’d turn into corpses as he thought they were before. “Anything at all?”

Bobby was quick to answer, which was usually a good sign in a child. “No. I mean. I remember going to school with Sandy. But then we left for home and that’s all I can remember.”

Michael looked at Sandy. Sandy stared at him as she watched him from over the head of her stuffed bear, which she had pushed into her nose and mouth. “You too, Sandy?” he asked softly.

Sandy nodded and made a little noise into the fur of her bear.

“Okay. That’s alright.” He looked between them as he spoke, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. “I don’t know what all your moms and dads told you, or the doctors, but there were some big things that happened yesterday. Some really big things. But we’re having trouble putting all the pieces together, you know?”

“How come?” Bobby asked, his unoccupied eyes wide.

“Well, because we weren’t there and you two were. Whatever happened, it’s why you’re here right now.” Michael offered the boy a small smile. “It’s okay that you don’t remember anything.” It was for the better when it came to their mental health. “But if either of you get to remembering anything, even if it feels like a dream or something, what I want you to do is let your parents know so they can write it all down and then call me. I’m the person in charge of figuring out all that time you lost. And it doesn’t matter when it happens, day or night. I just need you to make sure we know. Can you do that for me?”

Sandy nodded against her bear once more, and Bobby did so with a soft ‘yes, sir’. His eyes were huge, but Michael’s calm behavior kept him from really panicking. Spending his summers in his aunt’s pediatric office as a youth was suddenly coming in really handy. Most his family consisted of medical professionals in one way or another; if it wasn’t professional, it was military.

Saying gentle goodbyes, Michael headed out to give his information to their parents. He implored them to call him with anything if Bobby or Sandy came up with anything. Their parents were all too eager to agree with him, though it was times like those that made Michael wish Garretsville was big enough for detectives and not just uniformed officers.

It was just a shame that Michael wouldn’t hear from them until almost a year later.

Garretsville Crimes - UnAutopsy Reports

2012-10-03T00:50:00.000-07:00

Kind of like having a merry happy unbirthday, only with the same amount of death by a slightly increased amount of bleeding.

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AUTOPSY REPORT autopsy was not performed – form filed based on actual events

OFFICE of the GARRETSVILLE CITY MEDICAL EXAMINER

DATE and HOUR AUTOPSY WAS PERFORMED: May 28^th, 2011; autopsy was not performed

Performed and Evaluated By: Michael Hays, M.D.

Assistant: Monica Dupree, M.D.

Notes: By order of Sheriff John Mason, an autopsy report is being made for records. Victims survived the damaged described within, but the chance of them recovering fully from their injuries is slim. Through my analysis of the crime scene in which we believed the victims were fully deceased, due to no presence of active vital signs, and pictures taken of their bodies when they came to, I am able to construct an analysis. Because of the unique circumstances, my analysis will be filled with hypothesis I cannot fully prove, due to not having access to the victims after their admittance to Grand Mercy Hospital.

MEDICAL EXAMINER’S CASE #: 2011-016

NAME: RICHARDS, Robert aka Bobby (Victim #2)

DATE of BIRTH: March 21, 2001

AGE: 10

RACE: Caucasian

SEX: Male

DATE of DEATH: n/a

BODY IDENTIFIED BY: Bobby Richards upon regained consciousness

CASE #: 2011-000-264

INVESTIGATIVE AGENCY: Garretsville Sheriff’s Department

EVIDENCE of TREATMENT: Currently at Grand Mercy Hospital, undergoing reconstructive surgery.

EXTERNAL EXAMINATION:

The victim could not be brought in for autopsy. The following assessments have been made after holding personal witness at the scene of the crime, and through pictures taken by emergency medical personnel and doctors and brought to me for examination and theory.

Victim is 10 years of age. Victim is 4 feet, 2 inches tall, and 68.99 pounds in weight.

At the scene of the crime: The victim was wearing a green t-shirt and black jean pants, along with black tennis shoes. His book bag had been discarded further down the street. He and the other victim (identified as Victim #1 before identification) had been left in a position that appeared to be rushed, intending them for disposal. Richards (Victim #2 until identification) was found under Victim #1.

Richards’s torso was significantly lacerated and pulled apart, starting nearby the inguinal canal and ending at the thoracic diaphragm. Entry point of a blade is visible upon analysis of video and photographs taken at the scene and at the hospital. The skin after this cut appeared to have been torn away by significant force. The tools used were blunt enough to create stretching of flesh and wide but dull tears in the skin.

The internal organs of the victim were found to be cascading from the wide injuries to the ground. Defensive wounds along the arms suggested victim fought prior to injuries seen at the dump sight. The injuries that opened Victim #2 matched that of Victim #1.

The victim lacked vital signs taken by three waves of responding emergency personnel. However, when preliminary medical examination began, a Garretsville Deputy activated a flood light to assist with evidence collection. At this point, it was discovered that Richards’s eyes were responding to the introduction of light via dilation and constriction of the irises.

Emergency Service Personnel were called to the scene for both victims (Victim #1 explained later in this folder).

INTERNAL EXAMINATION:

N/A

LABORATORY DATA:

Refer to Grand Mercy Hospital medical records on victim.

EVIDENCE COLLECTED:

Refer to Garretsville Sheriff’s Department incident reports and Grand Mercy Hospital medical records on victim.

OPINION:

TIME of DEATH: N/A, although victim showed early signs of rigor mortis, but no signs of livor mortis. Original estimation was 3 – 4 hours since time of death, until victim began to respond.

IMMEDIATE CAUSE of DEATH: N/A, although due to victim’s age and amount of damage, initial theories combined trauma with bloodloss.

MANNER of DEATH: Had death been the ultimate conclusion of case, the Garretsville City Medical Examiner's Office would have ruled this a homicide.

OPINION: Based on review of initial medical reports from responding emergency medical personnel and surgeons, wherein there are details of significant damage to internal organs (lower gastrointestinal tract; kidneys; pancreas) and absence of the same (liver; gallbladder), I believe that this was an effort of group led homicide. The damage appeared systematic, and the removal of those organs suspicious in that it matched the organs removed from Victim #1.

The damage that is visible in the photographs leads me to believe this may be a group of 2-6 individuals. These individuals are likely all or primarily are male, white, between the ages of 20-30 years of age. I believe they are practicing cannibalism as lacerations dealt to various internal organs, according to these pictures, I am able to match to forensic research done on this subject.

//Michael Hays, M.D.

Garretsville City Medical Examiner and Crime Scene Investigation Unit

May 29^th, 2011

AUTOPSY REPORT autopsy was not performed – form filed based on actual events

OFFICE of the GARRETSVILLE CITY MEDICAL EXAMINER

DATE and HOUR AUTOPSY WAS PERFORMED: May 28^th, 2011; autopsy was not performed

Performed and Evaluated By: Michael Hays, M.D.

Assistant: Monica Dupree, M.D.

MEDICAL EXAMINER’S CASE #: 2011-015

NAME: CARMICHELE, Sandra aka Sandy (Victim #1)

DATE of BIRTH: May 25, 2002

AGE: 9

RACE: Caucasian

SEX: Female

DATE of DEATH: n/a

BODY IDENTIFIED BY: Bobby Richards (Victim #2) upon regained consciousness

CASE #: 2011-000-263

INVESTIGATIVE AGENCY: Garretsville Sheriff’s Department

EVIDENCE of TREATMENT: Currently at Grand Mercy Hospital, undergoing reconstructive surgery.

EXTERNAL EXAMINATION:

Victim is 9 years of age. Victim is 3 feet, 9 inches tall, and 57.28 pounds in weight.

At the scene of the crime: The victim was wearing a yellow blouse and white jacket. She was wearing blue jean pants and yellow tennis shoes. She wore a charm bracelet on her left wrist that remained undisturbed and pink-stone stud earrings, which were also intact. Her book bag had been discarded further down the street alongside Victim #2. She and the other victim (identified as Victim #2 before identification) had been left in a position that appeared to be rushed, intending them for disposal. Carmichele (Victim #1 until identification) was found, placed atop Victim #2.

Carmichele’s torso was significantly lacerated and pulled apart, starting nearby the inguinal canal and ending at the thoracic diaphragm. Entry point of a blade is visible upon analysis of video and photographs taken at the scene and at the hospital. The skin after this cut appeared to have been torn away by significant force. The tools used were blunt enough to create stretching of flesh and wide but dull tears in the skin.

The internal organs of the victim were found to be cascading from the wide injuries to the ground, some of which had landed atop Victim #2 under her. Defensive wounds along the arms suggested victim fought prior to injuries seen at the dump sight. The injuries that opened Victim #1 matched that of Victim #2.

The victim lacked vital signs taken by three waves of responding emergency personnel. However, when preliminary medical examination began, a Garretsville Deputy activated a flood light to assist with evidence collection. At this point, it was discovered that Victim #2’s eyes were responding to the introduction of light via dilation and constriction of the irises.

Emergency Service Personnel were called to the scene for both Victim #2. However, while crime scene responders waited with Victim #2, Carmichele began to come around to consciousness as well, so Emergency Services were advised they would be tending to both.

INTERNAL EXAMINATION:

N/A

LABORATORY DATA:

Refer to Grand Mercy Hospital medical records on victim.

EVIDENCE COLLECTED:

Refer to Garretsville Sheriff’s Department incident reports and Grand Mercy Hospital medical records on victim.

OPINION:

TIME of DEATH: N/A, although victim showed early signs of rigor mortis, but no signs of livor mortis. Original estimation was 3 – 4 hours since time of death, until victim began to respond.

IMMEDIATE CAUSE of DEATH: N/A, although due to victim’s age and amount of damage, initial theories combined trauma with bloodloss.

MANNER of DEATH: Had death been the ultimate conclusion of case, the Garretsville City Medical Examiner's Office would have ruled this a homicide.

//Michael Hays, M.D.

Garretsville City Medical Examiner and Crime Scene Investigation Unit

May 29^th, 2011

Garretsville Crimes - Chapter One

2012-09-26T21:57:00.000-07:00

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INTRODUCTION:

The following story is one that is slow in the making, but one that I'm taking an entirely different approach with when it comes to... everything, really. I'm trying to write in an area I know for scenes: small farming community. I've lived in and been to big cities, but I would have to say that where I live now has the most impact when it comes to what it looks like, the people, whatnot.

The world you see here is very much like yours and mine, but doing worry: the world you've seen in prior shots is still very relevant, even for this story! If I have my way with it, you'll one day get what's going on.

Also, I'm not a doctor and have done as much research as I can for what this story will have. So keep that in mind if you are vastly more intelligent than me (and you probably are). :* :*

   “What sort of ingrate would do something like this?” The words fell out of Michael Hays’s mouth as he stared at the scene before him.

    “A sociopath, for sure.”

    Two children, estimated to be eight and ten years of age, laid in physical ruin at the edge of a country road, common in the town of Garretsville. A small town of just four thousand, and about an hour away from any major cities, the lack of crime allowed the all of four police officers and any volunteers who offered their services to hunt for the boy and girl after they were reported missing by their respective parents. After the brutalized bodies were discovered, the single medical examiner of the town was called out to investigate.

    Michael Hays was a young man of only thirty-two, born and raised in Garretsville. His higher education took him elsewhere, but in the end, he returned home because of a sick mother and the fact that the last medical examiner seemed to have vanished with no trace beyond a letter of apology to his family.

    He walked over to the bodies, head tilted as he stared over the messy remains. The children had been gutted in near-equal ways with the rest of their bodies relatively intact. At first, the police were ruling it an animal attack, the severity by which their insides were destroyed incomprehensible to the small town police as anything but. Unfortunately, the forensics trained examiner knew that couldn’t be it. They had no marks from teeth or claws anywhere on their skin. Bruising, yes, but dogs, wolves, coyotes didn’t bruise their victims into submission. There would have been bites to the arms or legs, and eventually the head and neck. Puncture wounds.

    Michael understood why the police would have assumed as much, however. Things like that just didn’t happen in Garretsville by human hands. Michael had trained in a far larger city, however, and shadowed with crime scene investigators and participated in murder victim autopsies as part of his schooling. It was amazing, the things humans could do to one another.

    With a clipboard, Michael wrote down that it definitely was the doing of human hands before passing the clipboard over to his intern, Monica Dupree. She was seven years his junior, but far more stone-faced than he even in his senior years to her and his experience. He could trust her to hold her stomach even when the Sheriff was off, retching by his squad car as he was doing that night.

    Not that they had a lot of murder scenes in Garretsville, but he did test her often with photos and weekend trips to nearby cities. She came with high regards from nearby Millets Peak, the nearest metropolitan area where she interned last, and where he often took her to keep her adjusted to gruesome scenes. It was an honor to find she requested an internship with his office. They doubled to help with missing persons when forty-eight hours were up, or if it was a high stakes situation. They helped with burglary assessments as well; Monica had the keen eye of her father, a detective up in Millets Peak.

    Michael finally squatted down with a camera in hand, lining up for a picture of the boy’s face. Blue around the lips with eyes facing the sky, rigor mortis seemed to have kicked in perhaps an hour or two ago. Michael was preparing to click the digital picture when he froze. Behind him, one of the deputies flashed on a flood light that he asked for about fifteen minutes ago, and that had to be driven up by one of the volunteers. And as it did so, lighting up the crime scene…

    …the boy’s eyes constricted. Michael’s eyes widened and he lowered the camera slowly. “Monica.”

    “Yeah?” she asked from his side.

    “His eyes just constricted.”

    “What?”

    “Monica, get the stretcher.”

---

    It didn’t seem possible and the doctor in charge of the ER that night thought Michael Hays was off his rocker. Monica had tested, confirmed it. But it was only on the word of the pale Sheriff that anyone at the hospital listened to the two young professionals. Michael had the foresight to make the Sheriff and one of the Deputies watch it too. The doctors around Garretsville were bitter old men and women, keen on prescribing too many drugs and charging far too much for the vast uninsured elderly population. They didn’t see Michael or the studying Monica as threats, but just unrefined and too bright-eyed. A funny sentiment for a town where the biggest medical threat was diabetes or high blood pressure.

    But sure enough, with proper examination, the children’s eyes were found to be responding. They were beginning to breathe. They had a pulse. They’d yet to respond, aside from the girl, who had bloody tear streaks running down her temples by the time emergency helicopters arrived. Too dangerous to move them too far, with how destroyed their insides were, the helicopters instead brought surgeons and equipment from Millets Peak for use.

    Technically, it was no longer the examiner’s place to be there. Frustrated and panicked parents were dealt with by local doctors; the media arriving after being tipped off by excited onlookers were dealt with by the police. But Michael and Monica stayed there, the situation disturbing and fascinating. They would still need forensic input. They would still need someone to do the research that the doctors and surgeons couldn’t (or wouldn’t) do.

    “I don’t understand how they could be alive after all of that,” Monica said as she accepted a cup of coffee from Michael.

    He dropped down in the hard hospital seat beside her and shook his head. “They were well into the onset of rigor mortis. They should be sitting in the morgue waiting for proper autopsy by now.” Holding his own Styrofoam cup in one hand, he pressed his index finger of the other to his temple, as though it would help screw ideas from the depths of his mind. “If shock didn’t kill them, you saw the amount of blood.”

    “It doesn’t make sense. There’s absolutely nothing anywhere regarding this.”

    Michael rolled his head back and around his shoulders. “I suppose it’s a waiting game, really.”

    “I’m not good with waiting.”

    “Neither am I.” The result of their jobs. They worked with the dead. There was no need to wait, and in fact there was an importance in not waiting to do what they needed to do. It was far more high paced than what it was portrayed as on television and in movies. Their minds were working constantly, to provide answers that would result in the quickest conclusion of matters for the police.

    “Do you suppose they’ll start talking?”

    “I can’t imagine so, Monica.” He replied honestly, shaking his head. “If this is some miraculous reviving of life, they’re likely to be brain dead. Their hearts were stopped and their body lacked blood to keep the brain alive.” The coffee was all but forgotten, although he still rocked it in a slow, fidgeting motion. “The scene is still locked tight. Let’s go back there and finish reporting on what we can, and start a listing of events.”

    “Sounds good.”

---

    Michael was pretty close to just quitting out of rage by the time 4am rolled around. He’d been working for going on thirty hours, and at around midnight, a nurse stopped by to deliver photos and video taken of the injuries the two children endured. Since that was about when Monica and he had returned from their second analysis of the actual crime scene, he had his own digital pictures to work with.

    Monica was sent home at 1am, with the agreement that she’d be back at 9am so he could get a few hours of sleep and she’d hold down the fort. He appreciated being able to trust the young woman enough to do exactly that.

    But it was 4am and Michael was just frustrated. Exhaustion was likely to blame, but none of it made a bit of sense. For all intents and purposes, those children were dead. They were far past the point of possible resuscitation. Recalling their stiff little limbs when he got there, and looking at the pictures, they’d been there and clinically dead for at least three hours, but no more than six. The eggs of flies were found in the girl’s wounds, but they’d yet to hatch, definitely setting it well before eight hours.

    Beyond all that, his and Monica’s deduction of cause of death had to be right. They guessed shock and blood loss played a perfect storm, long before their insides had a chance to be tampered with. It was May, so while the nights in Garretsville got to be in the high 40s Fahrenheit, that wasn’t enough to significantly slow the blood. Their bodies would have needed to cool with it, and that just would not have happened in the midst of adrenaline and shock.

    Michael groaned and put his hands over his face as he dropped forward against the desk. “What is going on?” he whined behind his hands.

    “That’s what I’m hoping you can help us with,” a familiar voice said.

    Despite the familiarity, Michael still jolted up straight. The Sheriff, John Thomas, was across the way, resting against the door frame leading into Michael’s and Monica’s office. “Hey, John,” Michael said, offering a shake of the head and a bemused smile.

    “Got any ideas on what happened here?” John asked, walking in and gesturing at all the pictures Michael had printed out from memory sticks on his specialized printer.

    “Yeah, a few, but they’re not really realistic answers,” Michael replied with a sigh.

    “Well, can you do an Autopsy Summary Report for me, for both of them?”

    Michael blinked, feeling as though he was just slapped in the face with a sledgehammer. “Wait, I… I didn’t perform an autopsy, John. I barely even got to touch the kids. I can’t do a report like that. Why don’t I just fill out an Incident Report?”

    The ghost of a sad smile crossed over John’s face. “I want an Autopsy Summary Report for both of them,” he reiterated. “By mid-morning. It’ll be good to have on file.”

    Oh.

    Michael got it then. John wanted to have partially written reports to set Michael and Monica ahead if they ended up with the kids in their morgue anyway. “Alright, John. I guess the outcome is looking predictably bleak according to the surgeons?”

    “I don’t know, I barely understood them,” John replied honestly. “They don’t know how to speak stupid like you.”

    “Thanks,” Michael said with a small smirk.

    “How long can someone live like that though?”

    Michael pursed his lips, reviewing the notes of the noted damage done to the two. “Not long,” he said quietly. “Even we took out the damage to their bodies, what was taken out of them could kill them in a few weeks to a few months. But you add in all the internal and external damage, the blood loss, and whatever other abuse they suffered...” Michael trailed off, finishing his sentence by shaking his head.

    John sighed and shook his head. He reached out to rap the edge of Michael’s chaotic desk twice with his knuckles. “Get to work on those reports, alright? Tina can get you the case numbers we’re using and file numbers of Grand Mercy’s records so you can record them.”

    Michael nodded. “Yeah, no problem. Thanks, John.”

I am horrible.

2012-08-18T00:39:00.003-07:00

One thing that really sucks about my brain process is that I have a lot of things, I know what it is that happens, but they evolve to become more solid over time. If they aren't solidifying, the idea I have about executing them changes. So, I'm thankful that I at least had the foresight to not post a whole ton of things before getting to this point.

Sadly, this is internet retcon number two. I'm actually going to do the next attempt in a format that conforms to my repeatedly shifting mood. I believe with the proper set up, you can do anything. Besides, if I get an actual readership, it might give them something to do.

The idea I have--and keep in mind, this is hardly perfect--is to have "someone" (I know who) catalog the stories of the world Desai resides in. There are so many characters, but they all have their own stories that sometimes intersect and sometimes do not.

My next post will actually be a statistics post on the size/population/etc of Desai, along with a written geography. Written because I cannot draw for anything, and don't have a decent scanner besides.

I may be performing the chapter posts slightly different in light of the prospect of self-publishing (only because I just am terrified of going after agents). I figure if I can get a readership on here, that'll do.

Okay, I'll stop rambling now!

Preliminaries (series) - 002

2012-03-01T15:39:00.001-08:00

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.02

Red would be passed over to MDEA in the morning. Before that, he would be staying in a place called the Starscape Hotel & Casino Resort. It was a glitzy, glamorous, and huge place of business. The pride of Center-City, the Starscape was the busiest region in all of Desai. Nalia hadn’t seen anything of that size since her home planet, which had more than enough room to expand. Desai seemed so small, but they made excellent use of their resources.

The Starscape was a monster spanning almost 230 floors into the sky, with forty or so rooms on the average floor starting after floor 31. Floors 20 through 30 were actually conference rooms, with floors 15-19 encompassing a concert hall. The floors below that were mixed between the casino, the mall, the literal zoo they had and amusement park. Under construction behind the main building were two more towers, about half the size of the main one.

The welcome guide, called a Tour Guide by profession, was a colorful and dark skinned woman with a soft smile and beautiful accent. She educated that there were seven different restaurants of varying content, some not appropriate for children and some ridiculously family friendly. There were a few clubs as well, none family friendly and guarded to keep the wrong eyes from getting a show. The towers happened to pique Nalia's interest, and the Tour Guide said that they would be done within the year to support the increasing influx of visitors and immigrants.

It sat on a massive property that hosted a fifteen-tier parking garage and private park, lit festively and layered with water features, that could be used to expand the hotel even further if desired.

"Welcome to the Starscape!" the front desk associate piped. She spoke cheerfully, but the newcomers were taken aback with the fact that she was a young woman with green skin that shimmered with gold, and long white hair pulled back in a braid. They were as polite as they could be, though, and it appeared that she was used to the new people gaping because she didn't bat an eyelash at them.

The floor they would be occupying was 62, and it was specifically reserved for the delivery party of Red. No one else was staying on that floor with them, in case the criminal decided to start something. The police escorts took to securing him in a room equipped with high-end technology to keep him in there.

Meanwhile, Nalia and Frenz went off to a set of joined rooms that the police felt would be the safest distance... but only after a rather unsettling encounter the officers had tried to avoid with Red and Nalia passing each other, with him staring at her with those blank, devoid eyes glinting with the vaguest sense of interest at the fact that she wouldn't look away or avoid him as she did on the train.

"Balls of steel," Frenz said with a grin as he opened the door that connected both their rooms. "Most people would be nervous after being put into a headlock with someone like him."

Nalia laughed softly as she dropped onto her bed--it was so soft and plush--and looked at her boss. He clearly hadn't paid attention to her on the train, but Nalia left it alone. "Those kinds of people just thrive on being feared, though," she said. "It's no different than when you put on your game face during trials because the defendant is looking at you with utter spite."

"Good point." Frenz leaned in the doorway that connected their rooms, arms folded across his expensive suit. "Why don't you head out and get some time to clear your head? The detectives and I have a dinner arranged with some bigwig with MDEA, but I don't need you for that. Just remember we'll be meeting tomorrow morning."

Nalia nodded, but she decided she would just stay in her room. She had a call to make back home. Once Frenz went to his room, she locked up the dividing door on her side and started to work on the wifi internet that permitted Desai residents to connect to a super network connection that allowed them to connect to their world's resources. Not even Nalia understood it completely, or how they did it, but she was thankful. She owed a friend a call, given new developments.

***

“Sorry for all the noise!”

That wasn’t an unwarranted apology. Everything in the background was horrifically loud, between shouts and the sounds of construction, to him yelling to be careful with art pieces as he carried his phone around with him. Nalia sat in front of her laptop camera patiently, and just waved him off each time, forgiving her flighty peer.

The cheerful young man’s name was Hammond Shuu, a friend of hers from high school ages ago. They spoke very rarely those days, but he seemed to be doing quite well during the gaps of communication that they had. He moved to Nottinghamshire, England, to set up an art gallery. “They said I should have gone to Hammersmith, to give them a bit of color!” he said once. He ignored it, obviously. Something about the charm in saying he lived in the place of Robin Hood and Maid Marian was entertaining to him for reasons he never fully explained.

Finally, the video chat they held across the dimensional rift started to shamble all over as Hammond scaled some metal, modern-looking stairs. For being cross-dimensional, there wasn't any lag and the audio was crystal clear. The technology was impressive and likely driven by the same sorts they used to communicate between planets back home.

A door opened and slammed shut, and the connection was submerged into beautiful quiet as he moved to sit at a glass desk. “You’re brave for going there,” he remarked.

“It’s part of my job right now,” she replied. Her voice was flat as her eyes trailed off for a corner of the room.

“Nalia.” The young man brought the camera close to his slender eyes, looking at her with golden-brown scrutiny. “You’re the daughter of Shaman Nanna-Sin the Fiftieth or whatever. I don’t think I’m the only person who has told you that you’re grossly under reaching, for one. And secondly, Desai is notorious for cataloging everything. You’re not safe.”

Nalia turned from her laptop, grabbing out her travel pass from the Travel Agency. “Actually, someone was kind enough to register me as a class below what I actually am. Beta class.”

“After you told them you weren’t, sounds like.”

“I wasn’t going to lie.” Nalia leaned in close to the screen. Her tone was very final. She had her reasons for not lying, clearly, and Hammond needed to respect that. “I do need to talk to you about something that happened at the hub while boarding to leave Artania, though.”

“What?”

Nalia looked at her hotel door, and the locked door that connected her room to Thomas Frenz. It was as though she expected one of them to open at any minute, despite how she locked every lock available on both. After a few moments of silence, she looked at Hammond. “Red knows who I am.”

“Oh, God.” He frowned deeply. "What exactly happened?"

It was a big deal for a number of reasons. Not only did Nalia want to protect her identities from each other, but Red had been a prominent figure in their lives since high school, off and on. What else did he know?

“When we were at the hub, he latched onto me and told me to not come here, that someone was after me, and spoke my title.”

“Naty?” Nalia nodded at the question and Hammond let out a low whistle. “Sounds like he wants to expose you.”

“But why here? No one cares here. There’s a green woman working the front desk. That would have been like Osi'Ra deciding to demask Anthony here rather than Artania. I don't think anyone would care here."

"I don't know. Anthony is pretty good at getting famous."

"Only because he stands out like a sore thumb." Nalia ran a hand through her hair, shifting around in her chair a bit. "I guess... I guess I mention this because if, for some reason, I don't call you every three days... let's assume something happened." She really was planning for the worst, and while even Nalia had to admit she was likely overreacting, years of dealing with Red explained much of it away.

"How long are you there for?" Hammond asked as he spun around in his chair. "I thought you were just dropping the jerkhole off and coming back home."

"Tom is leading the prosecution team, and that could take weeks. I don't know exactly how trials work here, though I'm going to find out tomorrow. We're going to the Palace of the Watchers here soon, which is their 'supreme court', in a sense. Big bads go there."

"...that's a horribly unfortunate name," Hammond remarked after a pause to stare at her.

Nalia had to agree. In their dimension, the Watchers were insanely powerful, and often wicked, creatures. They came from a plane that no one really understood, and at one time were designated to various areas to protect and watch over the newly born humans with minimal contact. It was up to the humans to find their way. But some disagreed--the stories varied from world to world over how they disagreed and why--but they separated into two groups. Most, those who taught and married the humans (anyone would gladly admit that humans were quite lovely), decided to relocate to Tartoras--Mars. The planet that was torn asunder because that group of Watchers were kind of stupid.

There was another old friend, mutual to the each of them, that they often wondered without saying the words about her being connected to Watchers. Nearly every human was descended from the Watchers and their experiments (they were far ahead of their time), but those who were closer in their genes were... special, in the way that many believed they were close descendants, not several centuries removed or just products of experimentation. Chase Laine could have been downright dangerous if she wasn't such a peacekeeper. There was a reason her fans nicknamed her Earthgirl.

"Anyway, I don't know how long this will take, so I'd like it if you'd let me check in every three days or so?"

"I'd love it if you checked in every day, because being honest, I hate you being there," Hammond replied. His voice shifted after he paced to the door and locked it up firmly. It changed, sounding like two voices speaking together, in a language not spoken on Earth. Its dynamics were awkward for a human ear, to be sure, with sounds that humans would have thought primal when hearing them. "//I can come and visit you.//"

Her own voice changed, lowering a few octaves. However, she didn't develop that dual sound as he did. That was the species difference. The execution of the language was no different, however. It was the universal language spoken across the planets in negotiation and treaties.

Really, to them, it was the same as a Scotsman and an American speaking to each other. Different accents, but same language. "//I'll be fine. Red figured out who I am and probably decided to try shaking me up. Rattling me some.//"

As she spoke, her eyes darkened--literally. They broadened as her irises spread up and over all other visible parts. It was her true form. Demonic by Earth standards, and to some hauntingly beautiful, but the widening of eyes and mouth were necessary physical attributes to people who lived on Afiramen. Unlike most the other planets, Jupiter was as hostile under the cloud cover as it looked. While it produced natural light, it was still comparatively dark and violent. Their bodies adapted as humans adapted to the various climates of Earth.

"//I heard the battle was harsh.//" Hammond jostled his camera around as he sat back down. "//It was all over the news here, but I didn’t get to see any of the footage yet.//"

"//I'm glad my bones are Afirite. I think even Marauder would have lost that fight. Red’s gotten ridiculously strong.//"

"//You're built like a damn tank outside of Afiramen.//"

"//Isn't that sort of funny? I'm really not that strong back home. I have my status and my fighting to rely on, but I'm not super powered as I am on planets like... everyone else's.//"

"//Well, we all find benefits in being from different worlds. My light technology looks far better on planets closer to Helios. And Marauder improves too with his technology working better. About the only one who stays consistent is Anthony.//"

"//Such a freak of nature.//" Nalia stared at Hammond in such a blank, serious way that he started to laugh. She shrugged, though she felt a small laugh escape her. Anthony, although they very rarely spoke to each other, was her best friend into eternity. No matter what she said about him, that never changed.

About then, there was a knock on the door and her face shifted back to its human shape and she swung up to her feet. She walked over and looked through the peephole.

Outside, she saw a face she hadn't been expecting to see again: Agent Dennick Sharpe. He had to have some good clearance, since the elevator was temporarily keycard locked strictly to authorized personnel. Slowly, Nalia opened the door and offered Dennick a smile. "I hope you brought some food with you."

"We need to talk," he said. "Come on. I'll pay for dinner."

That was impromptu, to say the least. "Let me say goodbye to a friend on the computer and I'll be right out."

Preliminaries (series) - 001

2012-02-23T15:20:00.000-08:00

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CHAPTER 001

Extradition: Party of 50

WANTED MAN 'RED' CAUGHT ON EARTH-52C*

By: Dillon Maynard

The Delta Class man, known only as Red, has terrorized Desai and several worlds beyond with his sociopathy for over two decades. Capture was looking grim, until he made the mistake of crossing into Earth-52C*.

What makes this dimension of Earth so unique is that its Travel Agency Hub is placed in the middle of a Delta-Epsilon class hotspot. Considered superheroes in that dimension, Red finally met members of his own class that were motivated enough to end his long killing spree. Finally apprehended in Artania, Colorado in the United States of America, all of it can be credited to Naty Inanna.

Not much is known about the Delta Naty Inanna, aside that she comes from a planet called Afiramen. She definitely doesn't look human, but witnesses and fans credit to her a haunting type of beauty that throws unsuspecting parties when she reveals the power behind it.

The final battle ended with five city blocks laying in ruin, but with no casualties and with Red finally subdued. MDEA has equipped fifteen Center-City police officers with the proper technology to escort Red home. Artania Police Department will be sending officers and detectives of their own, along with the Artania District Attorney, who will be allowed to represent the prosecution's case as Red's biggest atrocities were committed on Earth-52C*.

Naty Inanna was unavailable for comment.

---------------------

It probably seemed like she was under achieving when she got the job of legal assistant to Artania’s District Attorney, and perhaps she was. She had the training for a much more sophisticated position by the standards of her native home, but it taught her humility and patience… and it taught her how to deal with circumstances outside of her control. They were all things she needed to know.

“Nalia, are you ready?” the DA of Artania, Thomas Frenz, asked as he walked past with his suitcase dragging behind him on noisy wheels.

“Yeah.” She stood after pulling back her black hair, wisped with deep red, into a ponytail and went to heft her own bag after him. “I’m not entirely sure why it is that we’re accompanying the police on this trip.”

“Because it gives us the excuse to see Desai,” he said with a wink of an eye framed with crow’s feet. “Don’t tell me you’re not curious.” Sure, he was being allowed to lead the case against Red, but he always had much younger reasons, so to speak, for the things he did when he was speaking to Nalia. She'd become something of a daughterfigure to a man who never gave himself the chance to have a family, forsaking that for his career.

Nalia Inez smiled sheepishly as she marched along behind him. It wasn’t that she wasn’t interested… it was just that he didn’t know her whole story. He didn’t know that she had seen things most humans couldn’t even think of. She knew of things that most people dismissed as the realm of fanatical conspiracy theorists. It didn't make her bitter, but Desai just didn't interest her. He simply didn't know. Beyond that, she wasn't exactly thrilled about dealing with Desai's customs process, which she heard included registering any above-human abilities one might have.

She looked like anyone from Central America physically. Her eyes were a soft brown, and she was a solidly built young woman in perceivably her mid to late twenties. She was tall, though. Standing at nearly six feet, she had to deal with many amazon jokes that weren't really funny because of how fit she was and how tall she happened to be. Fortunately, Frenz spared her. Working nearly every day with him wouldn't have been possible because the jokes annoyed her.

The situation at hand was simple enough, so that part hardly put her off. Artania police, with Desai police on loan, caught a fugitive from Desai named simply Red. He was a stoic, almost handsome man although a bit awkward at the same time. He carried himself with a lot of confidence and swagger. It was impressive, to think the calm and collected man was a wanted serial killer and mass murderer. He was a world hopper too, and it was by pure luck that he was apprehended by the superhuman named Inanna and the Artania police. Inanna wouldn't have been involved at all had she not been asked. Nalia knew it because she was Inanna.

When she accepted the plea for assistance as Inanna, she was hardly impressed with their reasons. A friend of hers used to lecture about that type of killer. They were inadequate, Anthony used to say. They couldn’t handle anyone their own size so they would target the weaker to make them feel superior. That explained why the super powered Red liked to target humans. And it made sense of the ugly and corrupt men and women across the system, really. The memories of those lectures made her unenthusiastic to help them. Why did they need to call her in at all?

In fact, she doubted them almost entirely despite agreeing to the job for a cop friend, right until she found herself getting punched by a lot more strength than a human had. He was a human, and allegedly a desda as well. Those were the rumors, anyway. She hurt just like a human, but her damage level was at a superior level. Pain didn’t normally equal damage for her. The nanites in her blood rapidly healed most damage before it started to mean anything.

That damage sure as hell meant something when Red clobbered her with a fist, however. They rumored he was super strong but as frail as any human. Inanna realized how untrue that really was when she took him on. He was a living tank. Strong and durable, it was like a normal human going after an elephant with their bare hands. Fortunately, she was able to finally overcome that and he actually willingly submitted to her. He acted almost honorable in the face of defeat.

She was honestly worried that he'd break out of custody, even if she kept an eye on him. He didn't, and soon enough a troupe of officers from his home in Desai arrived to support his detainment with technology made to contain his type of individual. They called him a Delta Class citizen of Desai.

By mid-2012, because of Desai’s connection and Artania history of spawning ‘heroes’, Artania grew to have a population of nearly eight million. Taking out a few city blocks did more damage than it would have even three years prior.

He wasn’t even aware that the young woman accompanying the DA and the police to taking him back to Desai was the same one who eventually took him out, breaking his jaw and several of his ribs in the process. She intended to keep it that way, but despite her outward disinterest in Desai, she was glad to be going just in case he posed a problem for the group escorting him. She was the only one who really stood a chance.

***

The Artania Travel Agency hub wasn’t anything special. It reminded her of any run of the mill airport around the United States. Well-worn carpets and rows of abused chairs gave it that typical, unpleasant feeling that could be found pretty much anywhere in bus stations, train stations and airports all over. Even the boarding decks were boring. Concrete slabs with grooved strips to prevent shoe slides covered the platforms. A monorail sidled up to them and in some of those rail pits, large monotrains waited for boarding.

Although, Nalia found herself getting more and more interested as she observed the trains themselves. Technology needed to respected, especially when it was used to traverse things no one in their world had yet to figure out: dimensional fabric. While those accompanying the Red extradition were either so familiar with the technology that they didn’t care, or didn’t care because they didn’t know, Nalia smoothed her hand over its hull and observed every small detail when they boarded and went for their seats.

The technology was something she would have seen back home, honestly. So, it was brighter, glossier, but what made it tick was so advanced and well-made that she began to understand that the Agency hub was a poor example of what was to come.

Red was standing at an open quarter, since the trains were divided up by personal cabins as one would see on European and Asian passenger trains, waiting most patiently for his handlers to prepare the center chair on the right side for his massive bindings. He had to be weighted down by large, chained gauntlets and foot weights that increased the pull of gravity for him ten-fold. Really, Red had been a model prisoner and any desire one might have had to be aggressive with him easily waned as he showed how placid but intelligent he truly was.

Anthony would have loved to interview him.

Nalia didn't much care, personally. She was passing Red by, not bothering to honor him with a look. She'd just gotten past him when she felt his gauntleted hands suddenly latch onto her shoulders. He yanked her close with that brutal strength and, for a moment, she believed she’d have to ruin her cover to keep him from killing her. But instead, he pulled her close and, through the wiring that held his broken jaw shut, hissed, “Don’t go. You're just the type they want to see.”

The situation blinded her to the cops and Frenz trying to get her free from Red. He was just too strong, and they couldn’t electrocute him while he was holding her. Fortunately, he just released her after saying what he had to say and took the punishment that came after doing that. It turned into such a bizarre encounter; Nalia could only just stare as she was pulled away.

Frenz was pulling on her, to get her away, and Nalia allowed herself to be pulled--although she didn’t look away. Red watched her as he was dragged into the cabin, and Nalia just couldn't look away because of her guard being raised and expecting the worst.

She felt cold, and frankly a bit disturbed. How did he know her real name? Naty Inanna was her birth name. No one knew her name unless they were from home or one of her few truly trusted friends. It wasn't from deciphering her appearance. Her true appearance was often described as 'demonic and in complete contradiction to her deeds' by the press. She physically changed between her true form and her human form significantly. How did he connect the dots?

Her boss pulled her into their private room where she could sit down and calm down. Frenz plopped down across from her and leaned in as she stared right through him. “Nalia? Nalia, are you alright? Did he say something to you?” he pried.

“No,” she said, still a bit shell-shocked. She needed time to think over what Red could mean. He had already proved himself not to be a liar as most were in his line of business. He acknowledged his crimes readily, but when he fought Inanna, it was simply because he didn't want to be apprehended. "He was just breathing heavily into my ear," she said after a moment to process things still. Frenz wanted more details though, so she gave him what she thought would appease him at least a bit. She looked out the window to the people boarding another monorail about thirty feet away. "It was disturbing."

The encounter was incredibly disturbing. That part was the truth.

***

It seemed like a pretty simple layout, but the tracts needed in order to run the monorails through the controlled spacial rifts were huge. Ten miles of tract, and then the rifts on Artania's side spanned an additional four. Fourteen miles of space, with twenty different tracts that took up an additional five miles due to varying sizes and purposes. That was why Artania was chosen. In the southern plains of Colorado, it was idea--even though Travel Agency personnel still had to smooth the terrain beyond what it was already.

Despite not having a massive interest in it beforehand, Nalia found herself quite disappointed when, at mile nine, all the windows were sealed with metal sheeting to prevent looking out. She wondered what for. Surely a people with the technology to control dimensional travel would know how to build windows to withstand it?

Ten minutes passed of what felt like a gentle roller coaster ride, everyone remaining seated and buckled in as the cars rocked back and forth, up and down, and then permission was given to walk about the train. There were attendants that rolled purchase carts around with everything from hygiene products to tobacco products, and there were beverage and food carts as well.

Nalia got up about twenty minutes after roaming permission was given to locate a restroom at the end of her cart. Since there were restrooms on each side, Nalia made a pointed turn away from Red and head in the opposite direction. He was watching her, and she wasn't going to give him the thrill of acknowledging her.

As she walked, she passed a cabin containing six uniformed individuals. They weren't part of the massive entourage helping escort Red, that was for sure. They wore brown or black, each laced with gold and silver respectively. Lines and dashes marked what were presumably their ranks on each shoulder. They looked incredibly fashionable, with model-level styled hair and their uniforms were cut in various ways. One woman sat with high cut shorts and long, armored black boots that matched her form fitting uniform. It was kind of surprising, considering soldiers on most planets were rough and meant to look hardened and masculine. While most had uniforms based on stripping identity and personality, those uniforms did exactly the opposite.

Nalia really noticed them when the woman, with shoulder-length blonde hair and red under layers, leaned forward and focused on her. "You're escorting Red, aren't you?" she said with a smooth voice that was level and strong.

Humming, Nalia stepped up to the doorway. "Somewhat," she said, honestly. "I'm really only here because my boss, the District Attorney of Artania, Colorado is accompanying the real escorts."

"How was he caught?" the soldier asked.

"One of our protectors took him on," Nalia said. "It was a bit of a fight, if the news coverage was right."

"Yeah, we saw that," the woman said. She stood up and walked over to Nalia, holding out a hand. "Ahmea Greer."

Nalia noticed she was the only one in black and silver upon better observation of the group. The other five wore the brown and gold. She had to be the leader, the superior. Nalia took her hand for a firm shake, smiling. "Nalia Inez. What were you guys doing in our world?"

"Field practices in the United Kingdom," Ahmea said. "You've got a pretty world. And a good set of protectors."

"We're proud of them," Nalia agreed. Which was entirely true.

After a pause, Nalia suddenly grew quite curious. "Hey, could I come back in a minute to talk to you guys? I've never been to Desai before, but I assume you frequent there?"

"Born and raised, actually," Ahmea replied. "We're from MDEA. If you want to ask questions, that's fine. We still have half an hour on this ride, after all."

Nalia thanked her, thanked the others, and continued with what she was up to. It was curious that they just happened to be on the same ride as the group escorting Red. Knowing political functions better than most would assume, Nalia wondered if they didn't trust the Artania police and even their own police officers, so they sent military personnel to hide out and make sure Red was delivered safely. It was entirely possible.

Finishing her business in the spotless restroom that was equipped with self-cleaning technology, Nalia walked out and back to that little cart cabin. She was surprised to see it cleared of all but Ahmea herself, who offered the seat directly across from her to Nalia. Nalia took it gratefully, folding her hands in her lap. "So, you're from MDEA? I didn't know you wear uniforms." She'd seen them a couple of times in news footage from the interdimensional city, and they never wore uniforms.

"We have dress codes to adhere to," Ahmea replied. "My group has uniforms when we're off-world for training."

"And you're the superior here?"

A very faint smile broke at the corner of Ahmea's lips. "Yes. Our ranks are a bit different than Earth ranks, so 'superior' suffices."

Despite being a very firm woman, Ahmea was polite and even toned. She had no problem answering the questions that Nalia had. How many people were there? How hard was it to get through customs? She answered all of it professionally but patiently. Her subordinates passed by a few times, but didn't enter until Nalia was waving and leaving the cabin.

She returned to the compartment she and Frenz shared just as the notice to buckle back in alerted.

"You were gone a while," he commented, watching her. He seemed a bit worried. "Everything alright?"

"Yeah." Nalia fastened into her seat. "I just had a sit down with a member of MDEA. Ahmea Greer."

Frenz hummed and nodded in acknowledgement. If he was going to respond, it was cut off when the train began to weave about as it had before when they first started their journey. After ten or so minutes of that, those panels covering the windows retracted from the windows. Nalia and Frenz inched to the window, looking out at what was revealed. It was beautiful.

For miles and miles, glistening waters colored after rainbows spanned endlessly. The skies were clear except for birds of various sorts flying about. Looking in the direction they were going, a massive structure was waiting, accepting and expelling monotrains for what seemed an incomprehensible distance. Where they came from, the sky was filled with clouds of brilliant purples and fire reds, spinning about each other in a soft dance. When the trains shot through, they spread out rapidly, like a vehicle speeding through smoke.

"I was told that Desai is like no place on Earth," Frenz remarked as he watched the structure approach.

His employee hummed and nodded, although her knowledge of places that were 'like no place on Earth' was vast by comparison to anyone else he knew. "Is that the Travel Agency?" Nalia had a feeling that was a stupid question. She should have researched the place more, but that was what she had Anthony for so many years. That's what a good friend did (she thought in good humor).

"Yeah," her boss replied, ever patient. "I can't wait to see what it really looks like."

The reveal was hardly disappointing, they learned as the monorail passed through a long tunnel as it slowed, and finally came to rest in the terminals. In direct contrast to the hub in Artania, the floors were white marble, with gold wisps and black lining. The pillars, walls, ceilings were metal and marble. The entire place was beautiful, well-kept, and hosted an array of technology that she was familiar with only because of back home. Not Earth, but her home planet, Afiramen. Jupiter. But the beauty of the place was just like in the stories about Torutas before it was destroyed by The Above for its evil and pride.

Customs was an interesting experience. They were liberal about weapons, only requiring that the items be registered. If one had a talent that was considered ‘superior’ to standard humans or desda--the majority in Desai in both instances and referred to as Alpha Class--they needed to register their abilities or, at the very least, their race. The concept of the desda was confusing for a lot off-worlders. They looked like humans, they acted like humans, they didn’t seem to be able to do anything special either, but they insisted on the distinction between them and humans. Since Desai was the master of the interworld travel business, no one openly questioned them. It was a matter of diplomacy because of their insistence on the difference.

Nalia wanted to be honest. One of the customs supervisors, a man named Sharpe according to his keycard badge, said that there were plenty of ways to find liars throughout the city. She didn’t need that heat. “Why do people with natural abilities have to register?” she asked, albeit a bit passively. She didn't want to raise suspicion.

Sharpe didn’t skip a beat. Despite being classically 'tall, dark and handsome', he was rough and blunt. “Because people with above the standard can be considered living weapons. We used to have it that people didn’t have to register that way, but we had to change that because of dipshits who abused it. If someone doesn’t want to claim a race we recognize, they can claim another and just tell us what they can do. There are thousands of variables, but we got the systems to keep up with them.”

“So, if I wasn’t human--” Completely hypothetically speaking, of course. “--you’d let me register as human so long as I registered my abilities? Or I could register as… whatever race I am, and you’d accept that?”

“Unless we don’t have that race on file, yeah. Otherwise you’ll get the grand gift of introducing yourself to us.”

“How often does that happen?”

“Basically never.” He quirked an eyebrow at her.

Desai was impeccably good at its job. Nalia suspected they had less forward ways of discovering liars. Their technology was so advanced, she suspected genetic scanners.

Quietly, she requested a place to register away from her group of fellow travelers. Sharpe took her to a room apparently designed for exactly that. It was one of ten, and he went to sit across from her.

“Species?” he asked as he padded at the tabletop. It was a computer interface that lit up in a language she couldn’t read.

“Afirite,” she replied. She crossed her legs, looking a bit nervous.

“Calm down.” Sharpe said it without looking at her. He scrolled through a few options and selected one. “Superior sight, strength, endurance and speed. Correct?”

Nalia blinked and tilted her head. “How did you know that?” She didn't know that anyone from her world may have contacted Desai (though, on second evaluation, maybe they had connected to another dimension of it?).

“I told you. We rarely don’t know.” He continued typing. “Nalia Inez. That’s human. Do you want to register your Afirite name?”

“No. No one knows that I’m not human. They think I’m just asking about legal things from you.” Nalia shrugged sheepishly. It was believable enough: that was why Frenz had hired her. She liked to ask questions and know the subtle nuances of laws.

Sharpe looked up with his stunning blue eyes and smirked at that. “Gotta give you credit on your forethought.” A beam of light shot from the surface of that table between them, twisting into the image of a camera facing Nalia. “Smile for the camera.”

Nalia quirked an eyebrow at him that time, and in some sadistic twist of humor, he took the picture right then. The hologram camera then recoiled. Nalia started to laugh softly, shaking her head and looking away. “Thanks.”

“It’ll be out at the receiving receptacle we passed to get here.” He waved her off. “Go on, then.”

Nalia thanked him again, walking on out and for the receptacle. It made her nervous because, after selecting her name from the waiting guests list, she noticed that cards were coded based on different standards. Using the old Greek alphabet, they classified people based on some abstract dimensions that didn’t make a ton of sense to her. It ultimately made her worry; however, when she saw that her card would need to be green. It was the indicator of the Delta Class. Super biological classifications that would be under heavy supervision if she so much as breathed wrong.

So, imagine her surprise when a white card with silver lining shimmering over its glossy surface popped out, labeling her Beta Class. Her species was listed as human. She looked to the side, where Sharpe was ordering his people around. Was it a mistake? Was it a favor? Whatever it was, Dennick Sharpe had just helped her out immensely.

It'd still require some explaining to Frenz as to why she wasn't an Alpha Class, but she'd just lie and say she did parkour. Clearly, it was a sport Desai citizens wouldn't understand.

2012-02-05T10:02:00.000-08:00

Introducing the project of this blog.

Edit Process:
Posted on February 2nd, 2012
Edit on February 11th, 2012 because I have whims

The City of Desai is about forcing characters who are larger than life in their own right to face each other. It is about every character introduced having his or her own story. These are the citizens and people affected by the existence of Desai and the Multi-Dimensional Exploration Agency (MDEA).

What happens when a paranormal anomaly causes dimensional rifts across a populated land? More important: what happens when the people of that land learn to control it?

MDEA's technology came from a history of sometimes brutal trial and error. They have come a long way since then. They have carefully catalogued worlds upon worlds, hundreds--if not thousands--of species and races. They have perfected their processes and handle everything that is thrown their way with a perfection not yet matched.

Really, Desai is a pet project of mine. And its story goes far beyond just Desai itself. It has a history, and it has a future, spanning outright centuries. The concepts with Desai, such as the trans-dimensional travel, is a passing era. It wasn't there in the beginning, and as the years roll on, it won't be there in the future. But it's here now, and this is what it's all about.

These chapters will bounce around. I won't pretend that I'm sitting here writing out a timeline to follow so that it makes linear sense. Part of this is actually deliberate: I want to show how busy Desai is at any given time on an individual character level. While one character is having dinner, another is fighting for their life, and all the while another is having a meeting debating the outcome of a large corporate merger from their world to a Desai corporation.

I am not an expert at writing. There will be grammar-fail and spell-fail all over the place, I'm sure. There will likely be a lot of fact-fail too. This project is for fun and, I hope, perhaps the enjoyment of others. I don't really have betas, so the fail you see is straight from the source, baby. Oooh yeah.

There will be pseudoscience and there will be BSing. I do research! But sometimes the story itself is more important to me than details. Again, it's just for fun.

In conclusion, I hope you enjoy this maniacally written series. Please be gentle, for I am a fragile soul and a considerably special snowflake. You're welcome to ask questions at gentlearmor@gmail.com.

All the best,

Alexandra

EDIT: I will sometimes throw something else completely random in here. This is only because I really have no commitments to anythin and go where my brain decides it needs to go, lmao. I swear, I do have the ability to be cohesive, I just don't see a point on a blog where it is all word vomit.