Author's Note: And here is the second chapter, from the CSI side. Thank you the readers for not biting my head off.
Disclaimer: CSI does not belong to me. If it did I would be very rich, but alas... Be warned that I do not like Ecklie, so I'll probably wind up tormenting him at some point in this fic.
Metal and Neon
Chapter 2: Beginning
Las Vegas, Nevada. City of neon lights, dreams, and hopes. A glowing oasis in the middle of the desert, ablaze with the neon lights of hotels, clubs, restaurants, and the huge casinos that lined the Strip.
Gil Grissom, supervisor of the CSI graveyard shift, ignored the blaze of lights as he drove through the city toward CSI headquarters. His attention was on the street, but his thoughts were elsewhere. He was chewing on a problem that had been circulating through Vegas since the strange meteor shower several days before.
Almost a week previously, the night sky had been ablaze with light from another source. A number of large fireballs had streaked through the sky, coming down in the mountains nearby. The military had swept the area, but had found no signs of the meteors or where they might have landed. Not long after that, the strange occurrences had begun.
There had been reports of loud voices and huge silhouettes coming in from around the mountains. People had gone to investigate, but few ever returned and those who did come back told tales of evil red eyes glowing in the dark, huge shapes of solid steel moving through the canyons, deliberate cruelty and torture. Of those who vanished, no trace of them had been found. Then reports of vehicles driving themselves through the streets of the city had begun to pour in and showed no signs of stopping. The majority of them described a massive black and grey truck that mowed down anything in its path.
Most of the LVPD laughed at those reports, saying that there was no such thing as a car that drove itself. Several of the dayshift CSIs had adopted the same attitude. Grissom himself was keeping his mind open to all possibilities, but even he was skeptical.
As he paused at a red light, he casually glanced over at the car next to him. What he saw shocked him.
Right next to him, waiting for the light to change, was a maroon Porsche 929 with windows tinted black. On its hood was a purple symbol that resembled a crowned, scowling face. Light reflecting off a nearby mirrored glass window allowed him to look into the vehicle.
There was no driver.
The driver's seat was empty. Suddenly, Grissom wondered if the reports could be true after all.
The light turned green. As Grissom watched, the car shifted gears on its own and drove off with no one behind the wheel. Grissom stared after it until the car behind him honked its horn loudly, shocking him out of his trance.
"Something on your mind?" Catherine Willows asked, catching up with him as he walked toward his office.
He looked at her. "I'm just thinking about those reports we've been getting lately."
"The ones about the self-driving cars?" Catherine snorted. "A lot of nonsense."
"Maybe not," he responded.
She eyed him. "What's this about?"
"I..." He hesitated, then tried again. "I think I might have seen one."
Catherine stared at him.
"I stopped for a red light and happened to glance at the car next to me. It was a maroon Porsche 929 with a yellow stripe on its hood and a purple symbol. The windows were tinted. Light reflecting off a window let me see the interior. There was no one behind the wheel."
The other CSI stared at him, but was spared a response by the arrival of another of their coworkers.
Nick Stokes was a handsome young man with a reputation as a ladies man. Catherine, however, knew that Nick's reputation was only a facade. The young man and Grissom were a tight couple.
"Heya, guys," Nick greeted cheerfully.
"What's gotten you so chipper?" Catherine couldn't help asking.
Nick grinned at her. "Finally cracked my case."
"That was the man who was run over, right?"
"Yeah. Turns out that he had a nasty grudge against one of his neighbors, a grudge that was apparently mutual. The vic ran over his neighbor's cat and the neighbor lost it. He knocked the vic out cold and ran him down."
Catherine winced. "That's nasty."
Nick nodded, then looked at his boss/lover. "You okay?"
"He thinks he saw one of those driverless cars," Catherine jumped in before Grissom could speak.
"You too?" Nick asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Nick?"
"I saw one too. A yellow drag racer with an open cockpit. No one behind the wheel, and it's driving down the side streets on the west side."
Catherine stared at him.
Captain Jim Brass from Homicide poked his head around the corner. "Come on, you guys. We've got a big one."
Ten minutes later the entire team stood on the side of the road, staring in horror at the tangle of twisted metal that had been several cars and at least one SUV. All of them looked like they'd been run through a trash compactor. Blood was everywhere.
"I think we're gonna be here for a while," Sara Sidle commented absently.
"Half of you are," another cop corrected, coming out of his car. He looked more than a little green around the gills. "There's another body at the park..."
"You look like you're gonna be sick," Warrick Brown told him, frowning.
"Take a look at what I saw and see how well you can keep you lunch."
Across the city, Grissom and Warrick stood over what had once been a human being. The man had apparently been jogging when he'd been attacked by something. Whatever it had been had torn him apart.
"David?" Warrick asked.
The younger of their two coroners looked up from where he crouched beside the body. "He's only been dead a few hours."
"Cause of death?"
"Severe mauling."
"Is that the technical term?"
David shot him a look and went back to work.
"What kind of animal could do this?" Grissom asked.
"From the tooth marks, it was about the size of a mountain lion."
"These bites are too deep to have been made by a mountain lion."
"And there are bits of metal in the wounds."
"Metal?" Grissom peered at the shard. "Exactly what are we dealing with?"
David shrugged. "That's up to you to find out."
To be continued...
That's two chapters down and Primus only know how many more are still to come. Now send me a review and let me know what you think of this story. And here are the first reviewer responses:
Gromia: Thanks. Know what I find funny? At the end of 'Cyber Stargate' I strapped a big plow onto Ultra Rodimus and made him clear snow from Metroplex, swearing harshly enough to strip paint from metal and nobody noticed!
Fenestrae: Not this time, they aren't. And it has been a while. I was retyping 'Transformation' so I could post it on Lexicon, making changes both major and minor while I was at it. So I kept at that until I finished it and posted it. To date it's gotten 74 hits, but 'I Hate My Life' is still leading with 138 at last count. I hope you like this chapter!
See you next chapter!