A/N: I hope that yall liked that first bit! Thank you to Miss Elizabethh for being my first reviewer! You go girl! Anyways I would like to mention a little bit of Ri language, or "Nu" as it is called: the "J" is pronounced like the French J, like in Je suis. Also, you will notice many Ri with names from different Earth cultures. This is done on purpose, especially with younger Ri. The culture absorbed some of these names.

Also I would like to thank Miss Elizabethh for becoming a beta. You rock!

Now let's get down to business.


Pyrana, Alanaka, 5007AHT / 2051 AD

"Goodmorning Greater Pyrana area! Today's gonna be another summer scorcher with a high of 37C and a humidity index well in the 80% range, with severe thunderstorms in the afternoon. Keep indoors and stay hydrated! In other news, the Pyrana Police Department is still searching for a suspect in the 22nd street car bombing and the Jang-Sali metro line bombing. The police are still unsure if the two cases are connected. More on that 30 after the hour. Now on to traf—"

Marjorie clicked off the radio as the hovercar came to a stop. "They're connected," she said, massaging her left shoulder where it was sore. The heat had a tendency to bother it.

"What?" Daniel said, rubbing his eye. He had dozed off on the way over. Many sleepless nights had taken its toll on him.

"The bombings. They're connected,"

Daniel sighed. "And how long have you known this for?" This was exactly like Marjorie to do such a thing.

"Since the second bombing,"

"And you thought it was a good idea not to mention it to the PPD?"

"We aren't investigating the case."

"Gee I wonder why," he said pointedly.

"Because it's not the best way to help them."

"You just made a huge break in the case without even stepping onto the crime scenes! The very least we can do it tell Inspector Jong about this."

Marjorie paused. "He's been calling you. How often?"

"At least 10 times per day."

"You're exaggerating."

"Who cares? It doesn't take away from my point!" He softened, "Marjorie, look at me." She turned to look into his eyes. "People are dying. The bombing investigation is way more important than anything else we could be focusing on now. Also it would pay very well, but that's besides the point."

"Again, we will not be of any use to them," she said sharply.

He sighed. "You're insufferable sometimes, you know that?"

Marjorie ignored that last dig and opened up the hovercar door.

The house that they had driven to was located in one of the wealthier suburbs on the slope of Mona Zymuna. From the driveway, they could see that the rest of the city of Pyrana, the capital of the Phoenician Union, the pinnacle of civilization in the Orion Sector, the city of the future, was bursting at the seams. It was squeezed between the azure waters of the Tarani Bay and the mountains Mona Zymuna, Mona Epaka, and the Mona Pyorra Nature Reserve. The buildings clung to the Northern and Southern Peninsulas. Bridges lined with thousands of hovercars and pedestrian pathways spanned to the nearby bay islands.

The downtown skyline stood in the distance, its hulk-like proportions larger than anything seen on Earth, dwarfing the skylines of New York, Beijing, and Abu Dubai. A multitude of skywalks connected them, and cars flew between them and metros snaked around. But here in the suburbs the homes were much shorter. Tropical greenery carpeted the yards and palms lined the streets. A variety of trees with luscious and colorful fruits grew along the sides and in the back. Swimming pools abounded.

The particular house our private detectives stumbled upon was a two story neo-traditional. The walls were made of white clay and the roof lined with red tile. A vine blossoming with wilting yellow flowers crept up on the side. A salty breeze from the ocean occasionally stirred the hot, wet, oppressive blanket of an atmosphere. It was times like this when Marjorie began to miss Earth, or at least New York, where cooler seasons and a more pleasant atmosphere existed. But such times only lasted for a moment. After all, what use is missing something that you will never have the chance see again?

They reached the front porch and Daniel rang the doorbell.

"It's them!" a muffled female voice called from the inside. A small, wiry woman unlocked the deadbolt and opened the door.

Marjorie immediately deduced that the woman appeared to be about 60, as indicated by the gray streaks running through her dark hair, which was pulled into a bun, and the subtle aging around her face. And there was a sadness about her, a sense of loss. She wore a red short-sleeved blouse and a black knee-length skirt with short black heels, gold bangles on her wrists, and golden hoop earrings.

"Hello?" She tentatively spoke.

"Hi. Is this the Young residence?" Daniel asked.

"Yes, yes it is. I'm Rina Young, and this is my husband, Han." She motioned to a small, bookish man with round glasses and short graying hair. He was dressed in khaki pants and a yellow polo shirt. Rina continued, "And you must be Mr. Lee and Ms. O'Sullivan, correct?"

"That's us," Daniel said.

"Great. Come on in." She lead them into the house and immediately into the foyer, and motioned for them to sit on the pristine white fabric couches. Nick-knacks covered the tables and pictures of a previously happy family in their shiny, metallic frames plastered the walls.

"Before we get started, can I get you anything to drink? We have tea, hot or iced, and water," she offered. Such an offer is always expected in a Ri household. It is the polite thing to do; not to offer your guest drinks would be a social faux paux.

"Iced tea would be wonderful, thank you," Marjorie said.

"Thank you. A glass of water sounds good," Daniel said.

While she was pouring drinks, Han began to talk to them. "Rina and I both appreciate that you took the time to come talk to us"

"Well, we specialize in the hard cases. And from what I have deduced, this is a hard case," Marjorie said. "But it won't be for me," she smiled cockily.

"Yes…," Han shifted uncomfortably.

Daniel sat in mortified, awkward silence. Had it not been for the social trappings of his culture and species, Daniel would have facepalmed. He hated it when Marjorie said remarks like that at inopportune times.

Even I, the Watcher in the shadows of the room, felt uncomfortable. Which is quite the accomplishment really.

Rina broke the uncomfortable and overbearing silence: "So what do you know about the case so far?"

"I know that you lost your son. The pictures that have hanging show yourselves and three joyful children until the last one is about 18 or 19 years old. He then disappears from the photographs, which are fewer and far between. This indicates to me that he died rather suddenly and violently."

"Yes," Rina said quietly, swallowing to keep the emotions from welling up inside and bursting forth.

The pain had hardly lessened with time. Han reached over and held her hand. "It's alright dear, it's alright,"

"No," she shakily croaked out. "No it's not." She was doing all she could to fight back the tears.

Daniel leaned forward on the sofa and gently and honestly said, "We're very sorry for your loss. If you don't mind, can you tell us what happened?" He placed his phone on the coffee table to record the conversation.

Han took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes with his right hand. "The autopsy ruled it a suicide," he said. At the Rina formed fists with her hands, her knuckles turning white.

"But you don't believe it," Marjorie said. "Or at least, you believe that there is more to it. Some sort of foul play, I believe?"

"We don't know. But if that is the case, I don't think it was out of the blue. I think someone or something pushed him to do it."

"And what leads you to believe that?"

"Shortly before he died, he was acting strange and paranoid; he claimed that someone was following him. At one point, he mentioned he had to keep something safe."

"Did he say what that was?" Daniel asked.

"No."

"And you want us to find what this thing was?"

"Yes. We are offering you 50,000 Phoens. 20,000 now, and the remaining 30,000 when you find it."

The two private detectives looked at each other to gauge how the other felt about the offer. "We'll take it," Marjorie said, and Daniel nodded in agreement. Little did either of them know just how much it would change their lives.

"Good," Han said.

"The game begins," Marjorie said insensitively. "Did you keep any of his things after he died? Objects we can look through?"

"We have a storage unit in the Thrala district. We haven't visited it in a while though," Mr. Young said. "I can find the code and sent it to you."

"Great. You have my contact information. Please feel free to call me, text me, or email me at any time," Daniel said.

"Thank you both so much," Mrs. Young said with tears in her eyes. And so the two detectives headed away from the house, unaware of the mess that they were about to stumble into.

"We appreciate your commitment," Han said. "Finally, we will get justice for our son. This way to the door."

As the two private detectives walked back to the car, Marjorie whispered to Daniel, "They're hiding something,"

Daniel grunted in response.

"What?" Marjorie said as she got in the car. She recognized that grunt.

Daniel slammed his door shut. So Marjorie asked him, "Why are you upset?"

"You know those things called feelings?"

"Yeah…Why?"

"For a psychic, you're really bad at them."

"Not this fight again," she muttered.

"Yes this fight again. So long as you work with people, you've gotta respect those feelings. People aren't math, people aren't science. This is not a game that you can just play. A real person died."

"But people are part of a system, and their future actions can be predicted and their past actions deduced. I know the system. That's why I'm so good at what I do."

Daniel sighed. "You completely missed the point."

The rest of the hover-car ride was in awkward silence.

The car took our detectives back along the winding roads of the neighborhood to the Zymuna Heights Metro Station. It was a relatively small station, consisting of an outdoors platform with only the Orange line running through it. The outbound way climbed up and around the mountain to the neighborhoods on the far side at the edge of the city. The inbound way lead down the mountain into the heart of the city, past the Presidential Palace and the Supreme Legislature into the Financial District, where billions upon billions of Phoens and stocks were traded each day. Because of the small size of the station and the time of day, our detectives didn't have to fight their way on. They sat near the back of the third car. With the exceptions of a sleeping middle-aged man in the middle and a young woman with a baby towards the front, they were the only ones in the train car.

"Now leaving Zymuna Heights Station. Next stop: Salazar Park," a computerized female voice announced as the train left the station, gliding above the ground on the white railings below it. Houses, streets, and creeks zipped past below them, gradually being replaced with larger and larger buildings multiple layers of flying cars began to coalesce below them. More and more people of various species crowded into the cars. Billboards flashed bright electronic messages, urging citizens to take care of their hearts, buy the newest fashions, visit the far-flung planets of the Phoenician sphere of influence, and everything in between.

Eventually they reached the massive Central Station near the Governmental Plaza. It was a massive building with a couple dozen platforms and elevators. Their particular platform was dozens of stories in the air, with only a thin shield of glass separating it from the powerful winds around it. As the private detectives stepped into the massive crowd, insect-like robots the size of a human hand hopped onto the train, using their metallic antenna to inspect every square centimeter for cracks and loose screws that could spell disaster for the high-speed trains.

They pushed through the crowds to the ground level express elevator. At least 50 people crammed into the large space. At the bottom, they wormed their way onto the Northern Peninsula line, which ran at ground level from downtown to the end of the Northern Peninsula. The people on this train were different than the ones who they saw on the way in. These people were younger, consisted of more non-Ri species, and appeared to be from parts other than the Archipelagan Region. Denim and cotton-like fabrics abounded in comparison to stiff formal suits.

The storage unit was located in the Selfri District on the Northern Peninsula, near the Salmucha Canal. Cool clean water from the mountains flowed into the city from the Siliki River and warm, loam-laden water from the rainforests of the Slakani River Valley flowed into the city. Together they contributed to the complex canal and river system that further squeezed the city in a watery grip. The Salmucha was one of the larger such river-canals and allowed a considerable amount of water-traffic. The two private detectives arrived by metro at the Middle Salmucha Station. It was an area that they were both were familiar with. The stone walls above the boardwalk that ran next to the canal always had some sort of graffiti on them.

"Look at that broken circle," Marjorie pointed out. The strange black circular pattern with a break close to the top would follow them around throughout the ordeal.

But what stood out the most was the odd blue box that stood on the corner of Salmucha Street and Water Street right across the road from the station. It was always there, as if it was waiting for a train that would never come. Occasionally a kid would walk up to it, or a dog bark at it, but generally it just stood there, lonely as ever while the oppressively hot and humid Archipelagan climate peeled and chipped the blue paint and moss and mold grew in the many nooks, crannies, and cracks.

"I'm gonna catch up with you," Marjorie told Daniel.

"Yeah, see you there," he said.

She tentatively walked up to it, stroking the blue wood. She inhaled and went to open the box.

It was locked.

She laid her forehead against the door. The TARDIS allowed her to feel its weakened life. "Why are you here?" she asked. "Are you here to remind me of my sins? Are you haunting me? Why did you come here of all places when you could have gone anywhere else in time or space?"

As usual, it gave no answer.

The storage yard was a block away from the box. A guide robot about the size of a rabbit floated above the ground and led them to the unit they needed. From the outside it was gray, with a sliding orange door that had an activator lock next to it. Daniel took the key and inserted it, wiggling it around to get a hold.

"It's not turning. Sonic screwdriver time," he said to himself

He retrieved the the slender silver tool from the pocket of his overcoat. He pointed the red end at the lock and key. The little machine lit up and whirred. Eventually the lock budged and sent a signal to the door, prompting it to slide upwards. Daniel flipped a switch to turn on the lone lightbulb in the middle of the unit, illuminating the gray walls and brown cardboard boxes with a dull yellow glow.

For a split second he saw me in the corner of his eye before I disappeared into the shadows.

"Must be a lizard-rat, ugh." He despised them with a fiery passion. They were reminiscent of the trenches and fox-holes of his time on Gaios. They were everywhere there. In the mud, in the makeshift mess halls, tents, the latrines. Occasionally they wandered into medic centers. But the worst was when they were inside dead bodies that they ate the guts out of. It was enough to make a civilian grow nauseous. But he had seen far more terrifying and gruesome sights.

"Well this is a lot to filter through," he said, looking at the mountains of boxes.

"Photos," Marjorie appeared and read the black ink scribbled on each of the boxes stacked in the nearest column. She picked the top one up seemingly effortlessly with her left arm and placed it on the ground. "We can take these back to your place or mine and filter through them. See who we can tie to him. People, faces, addresses, documents, information of any sort. We need to see how he fit into his environment. Lets just peruse through the rest, see what's useful, and we can take care of the rest later. On a separate note, have you contacted Ren about the autopsy?"

Yes, we have an appointment to meet with her tomorrow at noon. She will have a batch of fresh Flesh ready to go by then, as well as a toxicology report."

"Was that the earliest she was able to meet?"

"She could meet earlier if we were to do a holo as opposed to Flesh, but Flesh is much easier to work with and gives a more accurate representation, so I would argue that it's worth the wait. We will have our hands full anyways with all the people we need to contact."

"Fair enough. You're the medic here."

They began to open the boxes. Most of them just contained clothing, which had no real importance to the case. However, some interesting objects were found in the pockets.

"He was a gum chewer, mainly for stress. Many wrappers, as well as traces of painkiller, presumably for headaches. Ate chocolate for the same reason." Marjorie said at one point.

"I guess it was the stress that led to his death," Daniel said.

"Or rather, the source of that stress. He was also a slunker," Marjorie said, using the slang name for people who explored the miles upon miles of hidden caves and tunnels that ran underneath the city. "There are stains of black cave dirt all over this jacket. I bet there is more gear in some of the other boxes. I heard it's popular among students."

"Yeah, it was all the rage when I was a student. Huh. The stains are also on many of these jeans," Daniel said, looking through a box of pants. At that moment, he felt something hard, and pulled out a small, slim black book. A small, yellow piece of paper stuck out of it, which he promptly pulled out. He stared at it for a moment, attempting to decipher the meaning. "Look at this sticky note. Do you know what this even means?" he handed Marjorie the paper.

"That's interesting. 'Beware the Avenger,'" she read.

He flipped through the book. Erratic and unkempt notes were scattered throughout it. Pieces of paper and napkins decorated with coffee and tea stains were jam packed into it. "This seems…important"

"Throw that in the box with the photos. We can come back for the rest of this junk later. We can catch a cab and bring these to my place for now."

And so they went off to the Almi District, the site of their apartments.


Later that night, the Young household

Vruuun. Vruuun. Vruuun. Rina's phone vibrated. 'Number Unavailable,' it read.

"Hello?" she gingerly answered it.

"You did as you were told?" woman's voice spoke.

"Yes." She swallowed. "Luke will get justice, right?"

"He will."

"And the private detectives, will they be safe?"

After a pause, the woman answered, "We can't guarantee that."

"It feels dishonest to not tell them."

"It is the best course of action."

"If you say so."

"We know so."

"Ok."

"Rina, you and Han are being very brave. Your country thanks you for your service."

And with that the phone call was cut off. Rina noticed that the sky was getting darker. A storm was rolling in.