Maxis: I have no regrets, except maybe setting the toaster oven on fire.
Leon: Why am I not surprised?
Maxis: Because Judy set the van on fire yesterday.
Leon: Thanks for reminding me, prick.
Chapter 9
Alex and Honey walked up to the door of the last house on their list. Alex adjusted his badge so that when someone opened the door they could clearly see he was not a terrorist or a "special officer to arrest a naughty girl." Honey loved the second event. Alex knocked on the door and it swung open with a creak. The two SAS officers looked at each other before both drawing their side arms. Alex entered at point and he immediately smelled a strong scent of blood. A lot of it. Alex signaled Honey to keep a distance and continued inside. He followed the scent upstairs to one of the rooms that was slightly ajar. Alex moved to the side of the door and pushed it open slowly as to not trigger any traps. The door moved smoothly until it hit a wall with a soft thud. Alex peaked into the room and saw that while there was no hostiles, the room was occupied.
"Clear!" He called out to his partner. The honey badger slipped out one of the other rooms with a nod.
"Rest of the rooms are clear as well." The two operators entered the room and surveyed the scene in front of them. There was a ram with a hole in the back of his head and a spider web crack in the computer screen in front of him. The silver fox stuck two fingers into the back of the ram's head and pulled it out without any brain matter.
"Looks like the killer got into his head," Honey commented. Alex shook his fingers off and wiped it on the ram's wool.
"This is new," Alex muttered. All other murders connected to the case similar to the one they were currently on didn't have mammals' brains being emptied out. Alex looked around at the desk and noticed that the keyboard was slightly lifted on one side. He picked it up and saw a folded piece of paper underneath it. Honey checked over his shoulder and picked it up. She unfolded it and looked at the contents.
"Project Genesis?" She read. "That can't be right. That project never was approved."
"What else is there?" Alex inquired.
"A name." Honey muttered. Her brow raised as she looked the name over several times. "Freya Alexandria Morren. It's circled and has the word 'key' written underneath it." A dead project and a name. Not much to go on. The two began to poke around the room for anymore clues with no luck. The computer's hard drive was torn out as well as the file drawer of the ram's desk. The two operators continued to search around the house for anymore evidence with no luck. All evidence was mostly likely destroyed or taken except for the slip of paper.
"Get clean up here," Alex growled. Honey nodded and called for CSI to clean up the scene. He looked at the paper in his hand and tucked safely away into his pocket. "Call the teams back as well. We need to regroup and find out exactly what we're going up against."
Meanwhile…
"You got any fives?"
"Go fish."
"You never seem to have anything I need!" Judy barked indignantly. Nick looked down at his cards and saw that he had mostly face cards and a six. While what Judy said was not entirely true, she did take multiple cards from him, he didn't seem to have the card whenever she asked for it and drew it the turn afterwards.
"Do you have any sixes?"
"Serendipity Damnit! I just drew the f****** thing!"
"Can … I ….Play?"
"Flash! You better have found that car or I will make your death so fast that it will take you a week to realize you're dead!" The sloth slowly backed into his chair in fear and continued typing slowly. Nick's phone rang and he picked it up and answered.
"Yello?" Nick listened to Woods berate him for being late for a little bit and hung up the phone and turned to Flash and snapped in front of him. "Hey Flash, look! Priscilla is waving at you!"
"Really?" While Flash slowly turned to the other sloth, Nick hopped over the desk and quickly typed on the computer and a slip soon printed out. Nick was already back over the desk by the time Flash turned back and had the slip in his hand.
"Thanks for the help Flash," Nick said as he backed away. Nick turned to Judy and saw her glaring at him again. "What?"
"You could've done that the whole time?!" She growled. Nick held his hands up in surrender as she stepped closer to him. "We've been here for four hours! And we weren't even in line! Do you know why?! Mr. Slackoff wouldn't stop telling jokes to slowpoke over there!" She jabbed a finger at Flash who was helping another customer.
"You looked like you needed a breather," Nick reasoned. The rabbit twitched and Nick noticed that her eyes tried to bore holes into him.
"I have worked too hard to get here, Slick. I won't let you take this away from me." Nick raised a brow at her and almost laughed in her face.
"At least you got something out of it! I couldn't move to a higher edge college because I'm a predator! At least you can be whatever you want to be while I help run a clothes store with my mother."
Nick watched her slowly deflate and he felt a tinge of regret. "I'm sorry," he said. "I will admit that I am kind of jealous of you." The rabbit looked at him as he turned away. He pushed down his feelings again and looked back up at her with his easy smile back on his face. "But never mind that! We're late for a team meeting. Getting emotional will have to wait later, Carrots."
Judy shook her head and took the slip from his hand. "Woods sounded pretty angry. Was it because of us?"
"Nah," Nick chuckled. "We are now bringing in the ZIA into our little investigation. And Woods hates them."
"Are you okay with them?"
"Silva's aunt is the director right now, so I'm pretty acquainted."
At ZIA headquarters
Judy looked at the assorted mammals in the room. Alex had his arms crossed on the table with his head resting on them. Shellon was rolling around again, Woods was brooding, Darren and Sheila were playing footsies under the table, Honey was working on her computer, and Nick was playing a memory game with the deck of cards he apparently always brings with him. They told the team to wait in here until the Field Director arrives about thirty minutes ago. Judy was sure that the Field Director would be like Nick and was probably slacking off right now. As she thought this, the door opened to reveal an arctic vixen with an eye patch and a cane.
"Welcome, SAS and ZPD, I am Director Skye Summers and I expect all of you to accept your roles as my subordinates," she said in an even tone. Woods sulked even farther into his chair while everyone else sat at attention.
"You seem chipper this morning director," Alex yawned as she glared him down. "Period finally over?"
"First order of business is to report Operator Alex Savage missing when I kill him."
"Love you too." Judy felt her hand go to her face as she reviewed her situation. What did she get herself into?
Maxis: Whoever can guess where the brain scene is from gets a ZIA agent OC. (And no, it is not Scanners).