The flashing lights of the early morning 31PD patrols leaked in through the boarded up warehouse windows, blanketing the taped-up crime scene in alternating flashes of red and blue. Beat cops of both the human and alien precinct alike walked, slithered, and stomped around the building, a cacophony of radio chatter mixed with the occasional camera shutter click and rapid mash of a datapad keyboard drowning out the detective droning on about case details to Chimera's right, the greying man stopping only to tap over to the next page on his digital dossier.
Torque crossed her arms to her combat vest, her eyes unmoving from the Adder's fading corpse suspended high above the ground inside a blood-stained metal contraption in front of her, the body slumped forward and the snake's maw sliced and mutilated beyond recognition.
"And you said someone called this in as an anonymous tip?" Patchwork stood to her right, briefly adjusting her glasses with her index finger as she eyed the metal contraption up and down.
"That is correct. Exactly two hours ago now, 31PD got a tip-off about an odd smell coming from one of the abandoned warehouses by the old Downtown docks. The caller wished to stay anonymous, although dispatch did note that they had a rather distinctive accent typical of the Sectoid population," Detective Baker replied, taking a glance at the body. "We're not entirely sure how long she's been here, but—"
"Three days," Terminal butted in, her hands on her belt as she slowly circled the body. "The blue on her scales is fading, her tail section is beginning to bloat from all the blood pooling down, and bile is beginning to collect around her maw—I'd say three days, give or take."
Patchwork mused for a few brief seconds, looking the body up and down. "Do you think she could have really mutilated herself like that? Or could our killer have moved her body post-mortem? Posed her, if you will."
"Judging by the lack of defence wounds and the angle of the blood splatters, I'd have to say those wounds were self-inflicted. That jigsaw piece carved from her neck, though… the cuts seem way too clean for her to have done that on her own."
"Now why would an Adder feel the need to cut out her own fang?" Verge spoke up from the back of the group, the Sectoid standing almost a head higher than everyone else.
It took a few brief seconds of silence before she realised the squad was staring her way, as though expecting some acute insight from the one Viper in their squad. She peeled her eyes from the body, turning to the detective standing to the side as he typed away at his datapad. "Remind me again why we were called out at five in the morning for this?"
"D'awh, did you miss out on your beauty sleep?" Terminal cooed, a smug smile plastered across her face as she stepped out from behind the Adder.
"Bite your tongue," she hissed. "And, actually, better question—why was an anti-terrorism unit called out for a measly murder in the first place? Shouldn't this be your job?"
"Glad you asked," the detective replied, pulling a black rectangular box from the inside pocket of his police jacket. "We found this tape in that old television over there. Has everything we would need to know about our friend the Adder here."
"Oh, old-school," Patchwork piqued up, taking the tape from the man and turning it in her hands. "Have you checked through any old-world novelty shops around the city? It's not everyday someone goes looking for equipment this old. Could give us some leads."
"I'll be sending a few of my guys out once the city wakes up," he replied. "In the meantime, though, we've only got the evidence on hand to go off of. Speaking of which…"
He motioned to Patchwork as she absently studied the tape, a brief second passing her by before she realised the spotlight had fallen on her. "Oh. The tape. Right."
She stepped over to the old CRT propped up on a rusted stand, a few brief seconds of admiration dotting the woman's face before she relinquished the tape to the television, the screen lighting up with a second of static before a modulated voice echoed through the speakers, catching the attention of the few cops working nearby.
"Hello, Ada. I want to play a game."
Torque glanced over her shoulder as the marionette on the screen began its monologue, silently picking out any bits of information that caught her ear.
"Joshua, Manshu, Diane. Three prominent engineers responsible for the rebuilding of City 31 during the height of Unification Day two years ago, all victims of the Gray Phoenix's brutal warpath to throw away all that this city has provided."
The screen flickered over to a grainy security recording, the Sectoid leaning in for a better look at the timestamp marked in the upper right corner. "Manshu Hsieh. Found dead in the Fringes on March 14th, 2040. The security footage is dated March 13th. It is a plausible timeframe."
"I wonder where they got this footage from?" Patchwork said.
"I had the exact same question," Baker replied. "Never got our hands on this tape back during the Manshu investigation, so whoever this killer is, they have some connections."
"The killer could be Grey Phoenix themselves, perhaps," Verge mused.
"That's our leading theory," he replied. "Still wouldn't give us a motive, though."
"It may not seem like it now, but today I am giving you the chance to start anew, should you choose to take it."
"Man, this guy sounds full of himself," Terminal scoffed, crossing her arms.
A small audience had began to form, a hint of discomfort even amongst the more hardened looking officers that stopped to listen in as the puppet began to list off what it expected the Adder to do and what would happen if she didn't, the various pieces of evidence scattered around the warehouse—from the serrated hunting knife and the rusted pliers stained yellow with blood, to the digital timer still flashing zero on the far wall—all clicking into their intended place in this grisly puzzle with every second the tape whirred on.
She took a quick look at the corpse from over her shoulder, her sight falling on the lone fang still hanging from her open maw before she snapped herself away with a shudder, cringing at the mere thought of bringing a knife anywhere near her own fangs.
It didn't take long before the tape finally found its end, the droning static returning as the warehouse settled back into its usual ambiance, the few aliens and humans that stopped to listen in returning to their duties without so much as a second thought.
"If that alone got you queasy, I'd suggest slithering off for this next tape," Baker said with a hasty chuckle, pulling yet another featureless tape from his jacket.
"I slither where I want, cop," she scoffed, paying the man a sideways glare. "And so... what, you called us out here because she was a former terrorist? I shoot people, not solve murders. This doesn't warrant our help."
"This was obviously a targeted attack," Terminal replied. "What if Grey Phoenix is rebuilding themselves, tying up loose ends? Or even worse, Shrike."
"So we're investigating this because we think some old terrorist groups could be involved somehow?" Torque replied.
"Doesn't hurt to look into it," she replied. "Besides, it's not like we have anything better to do. City's been really quiet ever since we took down those terrorist groups nearly… what, two years ago now, was it?"
"Two years, five months, twenty-six days," Verge replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "Give or take."
Patchwork ejected the marionette's tape, handing it back to the detective before taking the next one, granting it a quick glance over as she stepped back to the television.
"Seems the killer wanted us to find it," she said, tapping a finger to the sticker on the tape scribbled over with an apt ' For 31PD' in black marker.
The handful of cops still gathered around the scene exchanged a knowing look as Patchwork slid the tape into the CRT, the already fleeting crowd growing even smaller as a blurry play button briefly flashed in the corner of the dark screen.
Faint, indiscernible noises warped the static, a few seconds of silence passing before a weary voice echoed from the speakers, barely audible over the white noise.
"Whe… where…" A few soft clunks faded into the static before the voice spoke up yet again, much more pronounced than before. "Hello? I… I'm stuck…"
The sound of a switch getting flipped echoed from somewhere just out of frame, faint colours taking shape from beyond the static as the camera lens readjusted to the light. The pale eyes of the Adder that now laid dead in front of her met her stare from behind the camera, a few more people—Patchwork included—breaking away from the group as it finally dawned on the uninitiated what it was they were about to watch.
"Have you checked her identification chip at all?" Patchwork spoke up from behind, her back to the television and her eyes on the small metal chip on the Adder's wrist.
"We have. Black Market counterfeit registered under an 'Ada' just like the tape said."
Torque broke her stare away from the tape as the detective joined Patchwork by the body, her imagination somehow managing to paint her a much more gruesome scene to accompany the audio crackling out over the television speakers.
"What kind of name is Ada, anyway?" a fair-haired cop spoke up from the crowd, turning back to the detective with a chuckle. "Ada the Adder? Not exactly creative, is it?"
"Sounds like the name chosen by an Adder trying to get through processing as fast as she can. Someone who doesn't want a name, someone completely content with their ADVENT identification," Patchwork replied, her attention briefly returning to the television before she turned back to the body with a sigh. "What did you find on her chip?"
"We'll have to wait for the autopsy before we can get everything on it, but the ID Scanners our patrols have show it's been registered under an apartment in Angler's Point and a dockyard job in the Switchyard. All locally stored data, no records in the Reclamation Database."
A sickening crack cut their conversation early, an ear-piercing scream seasoned with a thick layer of static echoing through the building as the Adder's pleas for mercy grew much more panicked. For a second she kept her attention elsewhere, but curiosity quickly got the better of her, her green eyes peering back at the screen as the Adder weighed a hunting knife in her trembling hands, tears soaking her pale eyes.
The fair-haired cop whispered something to his partner, getting a playful nudge in return before the two focused back on the television as the Adder pressed the knife to her mouth.
"Anything else on the chip?" Patchwork spoke up.
"A few elerium car battery recharges from a shady service station across town, a few purchases from a liquor store down the road from her apartment… and a few purchases from a local pet store a few months back, oddly enough," he said, flicking through his documents. "No credit account registered under her chip though, so I have no clue where she's getting these credits from."
"It's entirely possible to live solely off locally stored funds if you know what you're doing. Perhaps her workplace was paying directly into her ID Chip rather than a Reclamation Credit Account."
"There are still places that operate like that?" Torque butted in.
"Only in the shadier areas of the city—or the more outdated," she replied, the two of them peering back at the television in unison as another distorted scream broke out over the quiet murmurs, a few cops by the back of the crowd briefly wincing away from the screen. "Have you looked into finding her original identity at all?"
"We're… working on it," the detective replied. "Ada's quite the common name, and that's not to mention the possibility that the name she chose when she first came here is something entirely different. We'll be marking down any identifying scars or deformities during the autopsy to cross-reference with our records."
"So…" Torque mused, glancing at the yellow and red blood staining the neckline of the Adder's top. "Do I really need to point out the obvious?"
"The human blood?" Baker replied.
"Yes, the human blood," she hissed, rolling her eyes.
"Well, we found quite a few traces," he replied. "The equipment we have onsite isn't able to identify who it belongs to, but it can tell us that the blood found in her car outside matches that of the samples found on the tips of her talons and beneath the scales on her palm—and, of course, the few drops smeared over her top."
"Could it be from her attacker? Maybe our Adder fought back the night she was murdered," Patchwork said.
"That's our leading theory, yes," the detective continued. "We'll have to wait until forensics gets back to us in a week or so, but I hope the evidence here will lead us to a suspect or two in the meantime."
Her attention fell back on the screen as Baker returned to his documents, blood dripping from the Adder's maw as she frantically searched the void below.
"You've got to be kidding me!" the fair-haired cop muttered with a chuckle. "How do you drop the knife at a time like that? No wonder she failed."
"Would love to see you go a round in there," she spoke up, a handful of cops turning back to face her.
"Who? Me?" The fair-haired cop turned around, a half-smirk still plastered across his face. "I think it's a snake trap, maybe you should have a go instead, hm?"
"Oh, don't you even—" she snarled, her approach almost instantly thwarted as Terminal grabbed her by her upper arm before she had the chance to bite that smug smile clean off his face.
"Heyheyhey, come on," Terminal said. "I think we've seen enough bodies for one day, don't you think?"
"Don't you have anything better to be doing, Thomas?" Baker spoke up as he stepped forward, placing himself between the two.
"I know when to take my leave," came the cop's smug response as he broke away from the audience, her eyes tracking him as he disappeared among the crowd of dark blue jackets and gold badges.
"You can let me go now," she hissed as the warehouse settled back into its usual ambiance.
"Can I trust you not to kill someone if I do?"
"No," came her curt response.
"Yeah, I kind of expected as much," she replied, loosening her grip just enough to allow the Viper to shake herself free. "How are you… uh… holding up, by the way? It's not everyday I get to see Torque defending the honour of a dead terrorist."
"Please, don't make me laugh. Why would I ever be bothered by what someone says about a terrorist?" she hissed, rolling her eyes. "Just back off a bit, will you? You're my medic, not my psychiatrist."
"Sorry. Just... looking out for my squadmates."
Their conversation faded away as the tape fell quiet once more, a noticeable wound caked with blood now present where the snake's left fang once sat. The Adder peered up, the flashing timer on the far wall reflecting in her pale eyes before the contraption binding her body snapped shut with a sickening crack that was drowned in a sea of static.
The Adder slumped forward, the pliers falling from her hands as she coughed up a mouthful of blood over her already dirty top.
31PD's little snuff film was over, the Adder's fate was fulfilled—and Torque was almost ready to call it there had a shadow passing across the screen not made her stop and do a double take. Whatever energy the Adder had left was spent as she wearily tilted her head up at a figure just out of the camera's view, a moment of recognition lighting up her face before the tape clicked to an end, the snake's final seconds frozen in time.
"Our killer?" Terminal asked, narrowing her eyes.
"A likely possibility," Verge replied. "Whoever they are, Ada seemed to recognise them. Perhaps this was the work of someone close."
"As is the case, nine times out of ten." The detective sunk his head back into his datapad, the soft digital glow illuminating his wrinkled face before he peered off at the dusty office windows overlooking the warehouse floor. "I'll show you all to the workshop. Follow me, please."
Everyone followed as Baker stepped away, interweaving between the humans and aliens of various expertise going about their duties under the glow of floodlights and camera flashes.
Her gaze rose to the dusty office windows overlooking the warehouse floor, bundles of wires and cables dangling from the old digital timer and down through the windows below, disappearing into the ill-lit office beyond the panes of glass.
A Sectoid pushed through the double doors ahead, his head in his datapad as he blindly navigated past their group. The detective caught the doors as they closed, holding them open as everyone passed through into the concrete stairwell beyond, an almost unnatural chill cutting beneath her scales as they ascended the concrete staircase.
"First room on the left leads to our killer's so-called workshop," Detective Baker's voice echoed from the back of the group as they reached the end of the stairs, a barren hallway lined with faded safety posters and empty shelves meeting them at the top. "Feel free to check out any of the other rooms, but my guys have already combed through them. There's not much to see."
A Viper slithered from the workshop as the group approached, holding the door open with the tip of her tail as everyone filed through one-by-one. Verge was the first to enter, granting the cop a courteous nod as he stepped off to the side, silently analysing the room as he waited for everyone else to pile in behind him.
Torque was the next one through, a camera flash from one of the two lone cops still combing through the evidence briefly blinding her as she slithered inside. A dusty workshop built atop an old Admin's office met them in the room beyond, yellow crime scene markers dotted next to any would-be evidence the cops could get their hands on.
Cables and wires of all lengths and colours covered the wooden floorboards, providing quite the uneven texture for the underside of her tail as she slithered deeper into the room; a single talon scraping against the wooden tabletops littered with tools and parts lining the large industrial windows that overlooked the warehouse floor below.
"If I had to warrant a guess, I'd say this place was once our killer's main base of operations," the detective spoke up as he entered, the door drifting shut behind him as the Viper disappeared down the hall.
"Lots of things left behind. Perhaps our man left in a hurry," Patchwork mused, pushing a desk chair aside as she knelt down to inspect a line of monitors. The screens lit up as she clicked the power button, the computer tower coughing up a cloud of dust as the fans whirred to life. "Hm, pre-war stuff. They seem to like their old-school equipment.."
"Their blueprints, too," Terminal added.
Torque peered back over her shoulder, scanning the blueprints pinned across the back wall—perfectly calculated strokes and miniscule details all weaving together to create something of a technical marvel, had it not all been used as a tool for torture and murder.
Various iterations of a so-called Bladed Coil took the centre stage, the blueprint marked final framed in the spotlight for all to see.
"It appears our suspect wanted us to find this. Could they be seeking recognition for their actions, perhaps?" Verge spoke up.
"What makes you figure that?" Terminal asked.
"The way these blueprints are iterated strike me as odd," he replied, his hands at a rest behind his back as he stepped over. "It appears various design choices are iterated and explained in a way your average police officer would understand. They made these blueprints as a showcase of their work, not as a guide for someone to replicate."
"The rest of these blueprints look quite different from the rest," Terminal added, her eyes glancing across the adjacent plans dotting the wall. "A Tongue Wrap, a Shock Trap… Chryssalid Containment? Previous ideas for our Adder, maybe?"
"Unlikely," Verge said. "They intended these designs for a much wider range of body types than the common Adder. Sectoids… Mutons… Humans…"
"More targets," Torque's voice echoed across the air, a brief second of silence befalling the room. "You 31PD fools have considered the chance that this wasn't an isolated attack, right?"
"Of course we have," the detective replied, a hint of irritation in his voice as he flicked through his datapad. "But it's just that, a consideration. We don't have any leads as to who or where this next game could take place, if at all."
"Typical," she hissed, her focus falling back to the warehouse floor beyond the dusty windowpanes.
"No luck with the computer," Patchwork called out. "It takes a physical security key as the password. Strong encryption, too. Very peculiar."
"I've already had a few of my guys look at it. Will know for sure if we can crack it once we bring it in for a better look," the detective said.
"You should send me a copy of the hard drive when you can. I wouldn't mind having a crack at it too."
"You'll have to take that up with my tech guys. That technology stuff is well beyond me."
Her attention drifted back to the dusty window in front of her as she brought her claws to a rest on her belt, a soft hiss hanging on the air for a few moments as she watched the cops below go about their duties, indifferent to the rotting body framed on a pedestal in the centre of the room.
She brought a claw to the waist-high desk, taking in the rough texture as she dragged her talon along its splintered surface and up across piles of discarded paper; indiscernible scribblings and notes hastily inked with no real train of thought. Her scraping slowed, her talons rising back up to eye level as she studied the thin layer of dust collected on the tip of her claw.
"This room hasn't been touched for days," she spoke up, wiping her claws clean on the sleeves of her combat uniform. "When did you say you found this place again?"
"Just a few hours ago," Baker replied, his head still in his datapad.
"Then our killer had three days before our arrival to dump the body and scrub this room clean, yet it looks like no one's stepped foot in here for a while. Why leave all this evidence behind?"
"Maybe something scared our killer off," Baker said. "Sent them into hiding before they had a chance to clean everything up."
She paced alongside the tables littered with various pieces of clutter strewn about like a movie set; an almost discernable order forming from the randomness the closer she looked. "We're not going to find anything here that the killer didn't want us to find. This warehouse is nothing but a set—a ploy to lead us in the wrong direction."
"And a place to show off their work," Terminal added, eying the blueprints on the wall.
Torque broke her stare from the desks, granting the body below one last look before turning tail for the door. "I think we're done here."
"You're giving our killer too much credit," the detective said, bringing the tablet to a rest by his side. "We're probably just dealing with some disgruntled, xenophobic engineer that's not happy with the way our city is progressing, so they stalk and kill some unsuspecting Adder to try and make some sort of message out of her."
"And if we're not?" she replied. "If we're dealing with some… methodical serial killer here, getting ready to strike again?"
"Then we'll deal with it accordingly," he said. "But we're not about to throw away leads because of some dust."
"Don't come crying to me when you run all your resources dry chasing up dead ends, then," she hissed, slithering towards the exit. "I'm done here. I have a gut feeling we're not going to find anything worthwhile. Not anywhere here at least."
"I agree with Torque," Verge spoke up. "I'm ready to continue when you all are."
"I'll show you all to the parking lot, then," the detective replied, the hint of disdain on his voice eliciting a brief smirk from the Viper.
Everyone filed their way back out of the room, leaving the cops still present to their own accord as the detective led the group down the hall, pushing open the big metal door marked with a flickering exit sign at the end.
Torque kept to the back of the line, the thick stench clouding the warehouse only becoming apparent as she caught a lungful of the icy, early morning air, her cold breath drifting away on the gentle wind.
Her pace slowed as her tail brushed over the grated metal fire escape, her attention falling on the waking city tucked away behind a sea of old-world brick buildings, the distant lights reflecting on the water that skirted the old Downtown Pier.
"Torque? Are you coming?" Patchwork spoke up from the landing below, stopping mid-step.
"Obviously," she replied, breaking her gaze from the vista and the foggy mountains beyond. "Just... catching my breath, is all."
A second passed before she made her way over to the stairs, taking hold of the railing with both hands in an effort to keep her body from sliding out from underneath her. While most of the staircases in City 31 were replaced with wider, non-slip steps to accommodate for the city's broader range of inhabitants, some outliers in the less traveled parts of the city remained, and Torque would always find herself taking due care around the old-world architecture to avoid another tumble like the one Terminal still hasn't let her live down from all those months ago.
"Our first responders said the fire exit was wide open when they arrived. Now where our killer could've gone from here is anyone's guess," the detective spoke up from the bottom of the steps. "I've got my guys scouring the nearby blocks for any security cameras that may have caught something, but this part of town may as well be a deadzone. Most of these buildings haven't been touched since the war."
"What about vehicles?" Verge said.
"We're checking all the traffic cameras in the area, hoping to single any vehicles that came and went throughout the last few weeks."
The cold metal steps ended with a step down onto the dirty, back alley concrete that skirted the entire lot, the old chain-link fence lining the property rattling their ghostly chimes in the gentle breeze. Warm streetlights leaked in from the end of the alley as they all made their way into the carpark, the lone sedan lit up in a parking space by the front of the building sticking out from the rest of the white and black patrol cars scattered around the lot like a sore thumb.
"Do these people really have nothing better to do?" Terminal scoffed, motioning to the few journalists photographing from behind the police tape on the far side of the lot, a single Muton cop standing by with his arms crossed, ready to keep anyone too curious for their own good at bay.
"They've been pestering my guys since we got here, and calling in Chimera Squad only furthered their curiosity," Baker said, letting out a yawn as he waved everyone along. "I'll show you all to the Adder's car, then leave you all to figure out where we're going from there."
A single floodlight shined down through the sedan's dusty rear windshield, a handful of cops from the alien precinct wrapping up their work as their group approached.
"It's your standard Reclamation-supplied vehicle rented out to newly immigrated citizens, although this one's been unregistered for quite some time now. It appears our Adder just never bothered to return it, although that definitely hasn't been unheard of. The factories spit these cars out like clockwork. No one really cared if someone kept them past their due date."
"So who was it originally registered to?" Patchwork spoke up, looking down at the number plate barely clinging onto the back bumper.
"No clue. Our records lead us back a few years to when our Adder first acquired the car, and then… nothing. Whether this car was registered under her original identity or was taken from someone else entirely, I have no clue. This Adder did a damn fine job at covering her tracks."
Torque slithered by the passenger's side door still sitting wide open, a yellow evidence marker sitting next to the handbag strewn across the tailwell and the mag-pistol resting atop a pile of papers in the glovebox.
"Have you checked the weapon's—"
"—serial number?" Baker cut her off from the opposite side of the car. "Reported stolen from a weapons shipment two years ago. We suspected a group of scavengers from Grey Phoenix were behind it, but it was never confirmed. Guess now we know."
Torque rested a hand on the door frame, leaning in for a better look at the handbag spilled out across the floor. "And the handbag?"
"Just some personal belongings. Nothing important other than her personal datapad. We'll be sending it in to our tech team as soon as we can."
"And the needle cap?" Verge spoke up, glaring in through the back window.
"The what?" the detective replied, a brief second of confusion dotting his face before it disappeared into his datapad.
"The needle cap," Verge gently opened the car door, ushering the man aside as he leant in over the back seat. "It stood out to me because neither the rest of the garbage nor the body itself suggests our victim was a drug user. Vipers and their subtypes tend to develop distinct markings on their body indicative of illegal drug use, none of which I could discern on the initial viewing of the body. A fondness for alcohol, maybe, but certainly not drugs."
"The cap's indicative of some sort of pharmaceutical drug. An over-the-counter type," the detective said, pulling a pair of gloves from his jacket. "Seems our killer wasn't so methodical after all."
She let out a snarky hiss, briefly baring her fangs his way. "You sound so sure of yourself."
"Well, if we find out which pharmacy it came from, then we've got a buyer, don't we?" he replied, bagging the cap in a clear plastic bag. "I just can't believe they missed this. What on Earth are they teaching you over at the alien precinct?"
"Don't pass your incompetence off onto them," Torque hissed before the group of aliens conversing nearby could get a word in. "You're all stumbling through this investigation without a clue, alien or not. I've been out here two hours and all we've done is state the obvious."
Baker rolled his eyes, his focus unwavering from his datapad as Torque returned her attention to the handbag, a single inquisitive talon lifting the front pocket open for a better peek inside. A small teal work ID caught her eye from the depths of discarded receipts and unremarkable knick-knacks, Wynn Cargo 31 printed along the top in dark blue letters. A few identifying details and serial numbers took up the card's surface, a shot of the Adder's face sitting front and centre more to identify her race than to prove she was the owner of the card—that was left up to the small security chip linked to the microchip in her wrist; Reclamation's sole backbone in a city of identical clones, no matter how flawed the system may be.
She dug her hand into the bag, fishing the card out with the tip of her talon before the detective stepped around the car, his eyes narrowing her way. "Hey, uhm… Viper, what the hell do you think you're doing?"
"It's Torque, you sleuth," she replied, card in hand as she dipped her head back up. "And I'm investigating, or whatever. It's what you called us out to do, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, investigate, not pull apart my crime scene, damnit."
"Well since we're going to that Adder's workplace next, I thought—"
"Wait, we're going to the Adder's workplace next?" Terminal interjected, her head poking up from the other side of the car.
"Not unless you have any better ideas," she replied, eliciting a brief second of glances and shrugs between her squadmates. "Like you said, detective, if nine times out of ten a murder was committed by someone the victim knows, then what better place to find someone she knew than her work? Besides, someone's got to break the bad news that she's not coming in anymore."
"So where the hell does her keycard factor into this?"
"She's probably got a locker or something we can snoop though while we're there," she shrugged.
"Just cause you've got the key doesn't mean it's free rein," he replied. "We still have things like paperwork, and warrants, and a whole bunch of legal—"
"That sounds like a 31PD problem," she said, tucking the card away into one of the front pockets lining her combat vest. "I'm an anti-terrorism agent. I slither where I please."
His next words faded away into an exasperated sigh as he returned his attention to his prized datapad, pecking away at the screen with his wrinkled fingers. "I just—okay, fine, whatever. We've got most of this stuff documented, anyway. Just ask before you start putting your claws over everything, alright?"
"I don't report to you," she hissed, dipping her head back into the car in search of any flashy objects that caught her eye.
"Looks like the coroner's here," Terminal spoke up before the detective had the chance to get another word in, motioning to the indiscreet van creeping past the police line out front. "I'll go give them a hand with the body."
"And I'll look into the sedan's onboard computer to see if I can find some GPS logs or vehicle diagnostic reports from the night she went missing," Patchwork spoke up, fixing her glasses as she leant in for a closer look at the outdated touchscreen taking up the centre console.
The coroners' black van rolled into the parking lot, the orange emergency lights atop mixing in with the slush of red and blue that blanketed the sides of the nearby buildings. It backed its doors up to the front entrance of the warehouse, a Sectoid and a human in matching uniforms stepping from the cab before disappearing inside, their squad medic following in soon after.
Verge silently walked after her, and with a curious itch in her tail, Torque quickly found herself following too, leaving Patchwork to her own devices as she got to work on the car's systems.
With her best poker face and one last gust of the cool morning air, she crossed over into the warehouse, passing through a line of police holotape before coming face to face with the Adder's mangled corpse once more.
Terminal had managed to wedge herself between the two coroners, lending them a third set of hands as they prepared to finally remove the body from its resting place. The few cops still dotted around the building gathered around, hands by their side and everyone almost completely quiet save for the few hushed back and forths that echoed out over the warehouse.
"There were blueprints in the office that mentioned a latch that opens it up. Maybe I should give it a pull," Terminal muttered, her hands brushing over the machine's sides.
The human coroner responded in a Spanish accent, his voice rough from years of smoking. "Just wait while l—"
Terminal's fingers found their way under a tiny latch, waking the contraption with an electrical whirr before it loosened with a sickening crack, the few cops by the front of the crowd taking a cautionary step back. The Adder's body jolted to the side, and with a heavy clunk, the contraption split into two, releasing the snake from her tomb and sending her crashing to the concrete below.
The smell was the first thing to hit; a thick, cloying odour scratching at her gullet as she turned away with her fist to her mouth, trying her hardest not to hack up last night's ramen over the warehouse floor.
Chunks of ripped fabric and flesh clung to the jagged metal and silver razors lining the inside of the machine; dried, discoloured blood coating the machine's interior. The Adder's body hit the ground with a heavy thud, her faded blue scales glistening under the floodlights like the rising sun over the sea.
She turned away with another dry heave, her gaze locking on to the only living Adder she's seen tonight standing tall by a small gathering of humans and Hybrids, distant eyes glaring up at what may as well be the snake's carbon copy. She watched as a Hybrid passed the Adder cop by, nudging her in the side and whispering something she couldn't hear. It took a second before the Adder broke from her trance, snapping to the Hybrid with a feigned smile before the two disappeared elsewhere in the warehouse.
The coroner hissed a few angry words she didn't understand as he knelt down to tend to the body, rolling the Adder onto her back before clicking his fingers at the Sectoid idling by. "Kip. Stretcher."
"Coming," his Sectoid partner replied, taking off towards the van before reemerging not a second later, stretcher in hand. He brought it to a rest beside the body, clicking a button on the screen before dragging the sides and ends out to match the Adder's physique, dressing her bed with a black and yellow body bag.
The Adder's synth-leather tail cover was almost torn in two, her ripped top sinking into her crushed chest. The coroners took a shoulder each, waving Terminal down to help with the tail before hoisting her up on the count of three. They tucked her arms and tail into the bag, their medic zipping her up as far as her reach would allow before they wheeled her towards the van, allowing Torque one final look before they sent her away for good.
Venomous spittle caked with yellow blood foamed from her mouth, her glossy eyes meeting Torque's own from the shadowed depths of the body bag before the Sectoid reached over and zipped her up the rest of the way, finally sealing the Adder away from the outside world.
She followed them back out into the parking lot, Detective Baker now nowhere to be seen as Patchwork made her way over, joining them by the back of the van.
"On second thought, I probably shouldn't have pulled that latch," Terminal mused with a wry smile, giving the van doors a confirmative slap as the coroners climbed into the cabin. "Hope it doesn't interfere with the autopsy too much. Say, Patchwork, find what you need from her car?"
Patchwork replied with a nod, giving the datapad latched on her belt a gentle tap. "Now we'll just have to see who can find something of note first—me, or the 31PD's tech team."
"And you, Torque? You seemed quite invested. Anything on your mind?"
Terminal's question caught the Viper off guard for a brief second, a moment passing them by before she snapped her attention away from the distant crowd of journalists, her maw finally caught up with her brain. "I'm going home to sleep. I can't believe we were called out for this."
"Dawh, come on, I know you find it at least a little interesting," Terminal cooed, nudging the snake in the pouch she stashed the Adder's work ID. "I mean, you took it upon yourself to send us off to the Adder's workplace next. Just admit it: you're invested."
"Whatever," she replied. "I'll see you when my shift actually starts."
She met no resistance as she turned and slithered back across the parking lot, stretching her arms to the sky as she let out a yawn that only worked to further amplify her growing fatigue.
The police holotape cordoning off the main gate flickered as she passed through, her pace slowing as she peered back at her squad from over her shoulder, their mouths moving with words that faded away on the morning air before they could reach her ears.
She turned around with a sigh, a camera flash briefly disorienting her as the few journalists dotted about the footpath swarmed around.
"Grace Garcia from the Channel 47 Intercity News. Can you tell us what an anti-terrorism squad is doing out here in Downtown this morning?" a Viper in a clean-cut suit said as she shoved a microphone in her face, the reporter making use of her tail to tower over the crowd of what was mostly humans and Hybrids. "Should the citizens of City 31 start worrying about terrorist attacks again?"
"I don't—"
"Agent, is it true that the victim was a Viper? Could this have been a targeted attack? Should our alien residents be worried?" a Hybrid spoke up from the back, practically climbing up the Viper's tail to get his microphone into the mix.
She couldn't even get in a word of spite before another three reporters shot their burst of questions, everyone's voice melting into a single conglomerate of emotionless professionalism. Another camera flash briefly blinded her, whatever responses she had fading away into nothing more than an annoyed hiss as she swatted the nearest camera from her face, slithering through the crowd and out onto the deserted street.
Fortunately for her, the reporters' attention spans were short-lived, their focus already falling back on the parking lot as the coroner's van started up with a mechanical rumble before setting down into a soft purr that carried out over the quiet industrial blocks.
She tapped a talon to her wrist chip, the indiscreet coupe across the street lighting up with a flash of yellow and a curt beep that echoed out over the silence. She threw the driver's side door open, the world beyond the thin sheet of frost layered over the vehicle's windows fading away into a muffled silence as she settled down into the dusty seat, her face melting into the palms of her hands as she brought her head to a rest on the steering wheel.
Damnit, Torque. Pull yourself together.
She's killed more terrorists throughout her career than she can count, seen more bodies than she cares to admit, witnessed the effects of energy weapons and plasma explosives firsthand.
So then why was a mere corpse with a cut up mouth so different?
Has two years of nothing but peacekeeping efforts around the city turned her soft?
No, surely not. There had to be something else. But whatever that something was, her subconscious didn't seem to want to clue her in on it.
The soft yellow glow of the streetlight above sifted through the windscreen, specks of light falling over the Adder's teal Work ID as she unzipped it from her vest for another look. Flashes of the body's mutilated maw danced across her vision as she met her pale eyes, a permanent scowl plastered across the Adder's face—the terrorist's face.
She let out a sigh before tucking the ID away, her attention drifting to the soft yellows and oranges of the distant horizon as the sun began its ascent over the sleeping city.
"Torque, it's Whisper, come in," the Canadian's voice crackled over the scanner installed beneath her car radio, his voice seasoned with static. She let out a groan, blindly swatting at the radio in hopes of either muting his irritating voice or breaking the thing from the centre console outright—whichever one she managed first. "I hoped to catch you all together, but Verge said you've already left when I radioed in."
She knocked the radio from its hook, the curly wire tangling itself up between the gear stick and the hand controls as she brought it to her maw. "What, Whisper?"
"Hey, come on, that's not proper radio etiquette."
"Just spit it out already," she hissed. "You're already on thin ice for waking me up at five in the morning."
"Look, I was just radioing in to let you know I'm expecting you all at the HQ a bit earlier today. Verge gave me the rundown of the case, and there are some… interesting things I'd like to go over in person. Will see you all in half-an-hour."
She let out an exasperated hiss as she head-butted the steering wheel, the car's horn echoing out over the empty morning streets as she let the radio tumble to the ground below.
That Alien Detention Centre isn't sounding so bad right about now.