Chapter 2

The sun had just started to peek over the horizon when the shuttle touched down on the precinct house's landing pad. By the time it'd landed the stims had worn off and Marcus began to feel the familiar weight of fatigue bearing down on his senses. He stumbled out of the shuttle and down the stairs into the office. Despite it being so early in the morning the office was packed with people and abuzz with activity. Enforcers shuffled back and forth, dragging newly arrested perpetrators to processing. Secretaries rushed back and forth distributing folders of cases amongst investigators who, at the same time, were trying to question witnesses, make calls, and generally try to remain sane in the pandamonium.

Marcus, despite the fatigue, nimbly ducked through all the foot traffic. It was a dance he'd honed and practiced through years spent working in multiple precincts across Terra. He managed to cut through the crowds to the stairwell leading down. He descended the stairs two at a time until he reached the bottom floor which was packed even tighter. He shouldered his way through the crowd, drawing more than his fair share of glares, before he reached his small office tucked away in one of the corners.

He managed to fumble his keycard out of his pocket and flicked it against the lock, cursing under his breath as the defective scanner refused to read the card. He repeated the process three more times before the lock turned green and disengaged, letting him slip inside and push the door shut behind him. He released a long exhale, slumping against the door and shutting his eyes, taking a second to let the events from the last few hours settle in his stomach.

He shook his head, afraid that keeping his eyes closed for more than a few seconds would let him fall asleep, and crossed over to his desk. His office was one of the smaller ones in the precinct. Unlike most investigators he didn't mind the cramped space, most days he never stepped foot in the precinct so he didn't have a reason to care. The only pain was that, on the off day when he did show up, he had a pile of paperwork waiting for him.

He stepped up to his desk, taking off his still wet jacket and draping it over the chair. He dropped to one knee and reached underneath the desk, far enough that he rested his head against the side. He fumbled around grasping at the cool metal until his middle finger brushed up against a small button. He pushed hard and heard a faint click, then withdrew a small silver case from within the size of a lunchbox.

He set the case on the top of the desk, brushing aside the case folders and paperwork to make room. Inside he found three small racks of stims akin to those he carried in the silver cigarette case in his coat pocket. There were fifteen vials in all over half of which had already been used. He withdrew four stims, placing one on the desktop and replacing the other three with the empty three in his cigarette case. Once done he jabbed the fourth vial in his arm. He had to stabilize himself against the desk as the familiar wave of energy gripped his muscles, making him seize for a brief moment, before settling back to normal.

He stood there leaning over the desk with his palms pressed on the surface for a long minute, collecting his thoughts. The Emperor was dead, or at least would be within the next few days. What happens now that he's gone? He knew that the military would do a competent enough job running things while the dust settled, but that didn't mean it'd be a comfortable process. Best they could hope for was riots and martial law. The worst was civil war.

He reached into his pocket and withdrew the crinkled piece of paper Conrad had given him, 'Beware the legacy of the Ren-Miruu'. He sighed, tossing it amongst the papers on his desk, "This is far above my pay grade."

He heard a click at the door and half-panicked, slamming the stims case shut and tucking it out of sight under his desk. He spun around just as Manny, the precinct captain, barged in. He was a larger man, built like a heavyweight boxer, with a shaved head and squared jaw. Marcus had always thought that Manny had been done a disservice when he was promoted to captain. He was clever enough but his build and physique made him suited for more physically taxing occupations. Something like breaking rocks with his bare hands.

"Oh so you do work here!" Manny exclaimed, his voice dripping with sarcasm. He stepped forward and picked a trio of thick folders up off the desk, holding them up for Marcus to see, "I told the secretaries not to bother leaving these since nobody actually worked here. They promised me that someone would get to them eventually, but I didn't believe them until today."

"Look, chief, not to sound rude but it's been a long night. I was just stopping by to drop some things off before heading home to get some sleep." He picked his coat up off the chair and slung it over his shoulder, "Let's just skip to the end. Am I fired or no?"

Manny pondered the question for a moment before shrugging, "I haven't decided yet."

"Well once you do give me a call. You know my number." He tried to slip past the massive man, but was halted when one of his meaty hands rested on his shoulder.

"Where were you last night?" Manny asked, raising an eyebrow.

Marcus blinked, matching his boss' gaze, "What do you mean?"

"The question is fairly self explanatory." Many nodded, dragging Marcus back and dropping him down in his chair, "Rosewood saw you get picked up by an unmarked shuttle. That same one just dropped you off on the roof a few minutes ago. Whoever they were they had authorization codes to land on the roof, otherwise the defence grid would've shot them down."

Marcus tried to stand but Manny pushed him back down in the chair. He sighed, frustrated, and pondered his response before saying, "I was...invited...to visit the spire."

The captain's eyes narrowed as if his glare could burrow into Marcus' mind and extract the secrets within, "What for?" His eyes wandered while Marcus stammered for an answer, they fell on the crumpled piece of paper lying on his desk. He picked it up before Marcus had a chance to stop him and read it aloud, "Beware the legacy of the Ren-Miruu?" He looked from the paper back down to Marcus, "Is this part of it?"

"How about this," Marcus sprung from the seat and snatched the page from Manny's fingers, then dashed to the door before the captain could stop him, "I'll deal with my own business. You keep your eyes on the news." He bolted out the door and through the precinct before Manny could respond. Within a minute he was out on the streets headed home.


The colossal lift shuddered as it plummeted down below the first layer of Terra's surface. Terra, being an ecumenopolis as well as being the capital of the Empire, was packed with people. To compensate for the enormous population multiple tiers of city had been built directly on top of one another, with speeder lanes established to coordinate traffic between the layers. Of course for those who couldn't afford speeders, colossal lifts were erected to transport people between them.

Marcus shifted back and forth, standing at the center of the giant rumbling contraption that shambled down the track to the bowels of the planet. Lifts made him uncomfortable, and Conrad's soldiers had been kind enough to drop him off at the precinct rather than his apartment down below, all without his personal speeder. He subtly tried to look around him at all the different folk trapped in the steel cage with him. Coming from the surface the lift was mostly packed with blue bloods all dressed in their fine pressed suits and dress clothes, ready to churn away at the rumbling machine that was the Imperial government.

Were he on a lift from one of the lower levels coming up he knew it'd be a different picture. Most likely he'd be trapped with factory workers and technicians covered in grime and sweat as they returned, exhausted and worn down, to their much smaller homes on one of the lower levels.

The lift came to a stop three levels, and a couple hundred feet, below the surface. Technically he was still in the government district, which meant there would be slightly more chance at an enforcer stepping in should someone try to mug him, but despite that he kept one hand in his pocket with a firm grip around the short pistol within.

The doors to the lift slowly shuddered open, depositing the denizens inside onto a raised loading platform. Marcus blinked, looking up at the artificial sunlight generators embedded in the ceiling far above his head. Despite the staggering technological advances it took to create and sustain an ecumenopolis like Terra it had always baffled Marcus how they were wholly incapable of making artificial sunlight look like actual sunlight. Rather than feeling like the warm embrace of the sun on a summer's afternoon it felt more like he was an ant feeling the unholy wrath of a curious child with a magnifying glass.

Marcus followed the flow of the crowd down the stairs and off the loading pad, rolling his shoulders to slip off his coat as the artificial sun's unrelenting heat continued to press down on him. He allowed himself to be swept into the foot traffic carrying him in the general direction of his destination. He let his eyes wander as he moved, having spent so much time in the same traffic for so many years he could walk the beat with his eyes closed. Countless advertisements flashed and sparkled all around him, their colorful displays focus tested and designed to specifically target those saps in the crowd with just enough disposable income to invest in whatever product flashed above their heads.

Marcus ducked out of the crowd just before they reached an intersection, slipping down an alley between two towers, both of which sharing a joined advertisement for one of the three megacorps in the sector. Any place off the beaten path in the lower levels gave the appearance of being dangerous, and this alley was no exception. Garbage littered the ground and graffiti had been sprayed on nearly every surface. A trio of unseemly individuals stood huddled together, whispering between one another, only to stare at Marcus as he walked by. The only reason that they didn't jump him, he presumed, was because they'd seen him before and knew he was armed.

He reached his destination about halfway down the alley. There was a single, graffiti covered, steel door imbedded in the wall with a small eyeslot. Marcus knocked twice waiting for just a few seconds before the slot slid open and a pair of beady eyes appeared, staring back at him.

"What chu want?" The high pitched, almost nasally, lookout demanded.

"Here to see Skag."

"Well that's too bad." The lookout spat back, "He left twenty minutes ago."

Marcus brought his coat back around and slipped his hand in one of the pockets and withdrew a money clip. He flashed twenty credits worth of bills, "You sure he left? If I remember right he doesn't leave house on game day."

The lookout didn't bother with a reply. There was a click on the other side of the door before it was pulled open, revealing the lookout on the other side. He was a tall rail of a man with arms and legs that looked like they would snap if the slightest breeze came by. Marcus pushed the credits into the lookout's outstretched hand before shouldering past and into the building.

He was hit with the odor of sweat, cheap beer, oil, and blood before he even reached the main floor of the shop. When the hallway finally opened up to the shop the smell was almost too overwhelming to bear. There were three "bays" in the shop, each of which set up like a doctor's chair only with far more insidious accessories. Around each chair were an assortment of saws, industrial drills and other power tools, and buckets stained with dried blood.

"Mister Verser!" Skag called from his office tucked away at the back of the room, "What a pleasure to see you again my friend!"

"Yeah you too Skag." Marcus mumbled while looking around the room. One of the bays had recently been used, the area around the drain below the chair still wet from the hose that'd washed blood away. He looked over to the wall behind the bay where a young woman lay sleeping on a worn couch, her right arm stretched out and resting on a short metal table. Marcus approached and lifted the towel draped over her arm to reveal a web of cybernetic implants stretching from the palm of her hand up to her shoulder like veins.

"Work's been good Skag?" He called over his shoulder, "Who's this? Some rich girl trying to get back at daddy? Your boys bring her to you saying you were the best grafter in town?" He turned around to face Skag, who'd left his office. Skag was covered in implants from head to toe. Both of his eyes had been removed, replaced with a pair of cybernetic ones that glowed with a neon blue hue. His entire right arm and left leg from the knee down had been replaced. Glowing wires, much like those on the young woman, were visible on his chest under his white shirt, all of them spidering all across his torso.

"The best grafter on the planet." He corrected, holding up a finger and flashing a toothy grin. "Be sure to get that right."

Marcus could taste the faintest hint of bile at the back of his throat, threatening to throw up at the very sight of Skag. Grafters, like Skag, had a fetish for cybernetics to the point where it was an almost fanatical desire to visit chop shops, like Skag's, and replace something with machinery. Once they'd cut themselves enough they figured they'd go into business and spread the good news of cybernetic enhancement, trying to draw more people to the addiction.

Of course there were those, like Marcus, who didn't care for enhancements. However where Marcus simply didn't have the desire to get "enhanced" other factions took it to a greater extreme. People like the Human Purity League, or the HPL, took that distaste to a fanatical extreme by bombing clinics and forcibly removing cybernetics from those who got enhanced in the first place.

Skag took a few steps closer, closing the distance between the two, his smile not wavering, "How can I help you today inspector?" He gestured to one of the nearby bays, "Here to finally get cut?"

Marcus felt an uncomfortable shiver crawl up his spine. He suppressed his sudden urge to walk away before replying, "Maybe next time."

"You sure? You haven't even taken a look at my catalogue. I'm positive there's something I've got that'll help on the job." He pointed to one of his two glowing eyes, "These are the newest models. They can break down any item to its chemical components. Can see infrared and heat. Can even see through walls." He gestured to his prosthetic arm, "If you're feeling adventurous you could get the whole package. Capable of tripling your strength in that arm, and can be equipped with self defence and utility mods." As if to demonstrate his forearm bisected in two to reveal the barrel of a short range plasma caster.

He winked before the arm closed back up, "All this for a reasonable price."

Marcus waited a moment before pointing at the arm, "I'm sure you've got the permit for that?"

Skag laughed. It was short and disingenuous. "This guy and his jokes!" He said to no one in particular, "I always say you're the funniest government stooge I know."

"Well I appreciate that." Marcus smiled with his own insincere grin, "It gives me the warm fuzzies knowing I'm your favorite government stooge."

The grifter flipped a switch, turning on one of the overhead lights above the bay. The light draped down over the bloodstained chair, illuminating it and all its gory glory, "So what'll it be?"

"Call me unadventurous but, despite the wonderful sales pitch, I'm not here to get cut."

"Too bad." Skag's demeanor switched immediately from used shuttle salesman to uninterested gangster. He flicked off the lights and turned to walk away, "I appreciate you stopping by. Slip the doorman another twenty when you leave as compensation for wasting my time."

"I've still got business." Marcus called to Skag as the grifter made his way to the office.

The grifter turned on his heel, smile reapplied to his face, though there was a hint of suspicion in his gaze. He gestured to the door, "Well step on in! Let's talk business!"

Skag's office was without doubt the nicest room in the shop, though that distinction wasn't terribly difficult to earn. It was slightly bigger than most closets, only really large enough to contain a small desk, a pair of chairs, and a single TV that was most likely stolen. Skag dropped down into his chair facing the TV, flicking the remote to turn to a random news station. Marcus sat in the rickety wooden chair next to him.

"So," Skag started, shifting in his seat to get comfortable, "let's talk business."

"You still have friends in the government."

Skag shot him a curious glance, "Aside from you? Maybe."

Marcus didn't bother arguing whether or not they were friends, it was a curious relationship they shared, instead he nodded and withdrew the crumpled paper from his pocket. "I need you to do some digging. I need to know what the Ren-Miruu is."

Skag took the paper, read it, and shook his head, "Never heard of it. Sounds like an alien thing."

"I was able to guess that much." Marcus quipped. "All I know is that it was classified and buried deep in the government. Deeper than I can dig."

"So what makes you think my friends can do any better?"

"Well like you said this is probably an alien thing. I don't have access to those kinds of files, I'm all domestic. Maybe in time I can get some access but that's a luxury I don't have. Your boys, on the other hand, are already embedded in the system." Marcus hesitated before adding, "It'd be a favor to me."

Skag stifled a laugh, "Oh a favor to you mister inspector? What does that get me?"

"I'll keep my boys off your back for another two months. I'll still check in now and then to check around and make sure you haven't started cutting and grafting kids or any other kind of sadistic BS." He then reached in his pocket and withdrew a slim cream colored card, "Plus you can give me a call if you need a 'get out of jail free' card."

For a brief second Marcus got the sinking feeling that Skag would turn him down, leaving him lead-less in the mystery. That dread was dismissed when the grifter snatched the card and nodded, "You got a deal."

Marcus shook the grifter's hand, offering a disingenuous smile, and stood to leave. He stopped in his tracks when the TV flashed red and changed channel. Gone was the well mannered news anchor and in their place was Grand Marshall Conrad Cain.

Marcus collapsed back into the chair as if he'd been punched in the gut as the Marshall started to speak, "Citizens of the Empire. For those of you who don't know who I am, I am Grand Marshall Conrad Cain. Commander of the Imperial military and protector of this great Empire."

The doorman rushed into the office, "Skag you seeing this?! His face is plastered on every billboard and adspace in the city!"

Both Skag and Marcus leaned forward, ignoring the doorman, as the Grand Marshall continued, "For too long has our Empire been shackled to the suffocating yoke of the Emperor. Under his leadership we stagnated. Conditions across our worlds deteriorated to the point of anarchy. Businesses, from the greatest corporation to the smallest antique store, were strangled under poor economic guidance. Other empires, our enemies, were placated with gifts of our raw minerals and energy supplies while our streets were crumbling at home."

He shook his head, his sharp gaze practically piercing the camera lens, "No more. This morning I'm here to tell you that a new dawn has come to our Empire. Last night the Emperor was arrested after it was discovered that he was planning to sell our territory to our enemies in the Kel-Tak Ascendency. He will stand trial for his crimes and, in his place, a new government will arise. One governed by the people and one that exists to serve the people.

"I won't lie to you," He continued, lowering his tone until he no longer spoke like a military commander but as a friend consoling another friend, "the transition will be difficult. But we will be here to protect and assist any who need it while your new government forms." His gaze fell to the floor for a brief second before he stood back up, back straight, "Until that time comes I'm declaring martial law throughout the Empire. The military, as well as your local officers, will provide order, protection, and stability until the new government is ready to take its place."

He paused before nodding, "Thank you for your time."

The transmission cut, leaving the three of them staring at a blank screen. Skag and Marcus both leaned back in their seats, almost in perfect unison. Skag was the first to break the silence, "So...the Emperor's gone? Cain's taken control?"

"It's temporary." Marcus managed, his tone more defensive than he'd anticipated.

Skag rolled his head to the side to stare at the investigator, "Men like Conrad Cain don't just give up their power. Especially when they get an entire Empire's worth of it."

Marcus didn't reply instead he just stood up and made his way to the door. He stopped before leaving the office, momentarily turning to Skag, "Let me know what you find out. You know how to reach me." Before leaving the shop.