December 8th 2013.
Cops, there's cops outside the office building. What's weird is they aren't investigating the squatter aka me, but the dead guy across the street. The whole thing was unusual. First, a van pulls up, and two guys carry the body out, then within about ten minutes a cop car shows up, and they begin cordoning off the area. It seemed like an act to me. I got near the area and kept low while listening behind a nearby car.
"Max!" a younger girl shouted running towards the body, "get off, get off me!" suddenly a younger man rushes in to pull her out of the hands of what look like crooked cops who don't know the meaning of civil servant. "Hey, let her go" he shouts as he pulls her out of their grasp and gets her across the police line. "they're saying max ODed." "Was he using?" "No!, he made extra cash donating blood. You really think the hospital would let him donate if he was an addict?" Suddenly, the younger man slipped into the crime scene and took a photo with his phone before being chased out by the cops, the two of them leaving right after.
Great, just what I needed, crooked cops, a setup to hide a murder, and now two teenagers investigating crimes, what is this Scooby-Doo?. I waited until those kids were out of earshot before I slipped past the cops and grabbed a sample of his blood with a q-tip and a napkin, no idea what I was looking for, but maybe somebody could use this?. Plus there were blood streaks around his eyes, no way that was a drug overdose. I followed the two from a fairly far back distance, maybe they could tell me what was going on.
After a couple blocks I realized they were taking random turns and figured either they knew I was there and would confront me in a minute, or they were just playing it safe given the neighborhood. Suddenly they disappeared, so I picked up the pace and got jumped by the guy, catching me off guard and knocking me off my feet. "Who are you and why are you following us?" he asked, his voice hostile with an unspoken threat. "Odysseus, and if you're going to investigate max, you'll need this." I handed them the napkin wrapped q-tip. "It's a sample of his blood, you might be able to use it to find out what happened to that guy, snagged it when the cops were too busy being corrupt idiots."
I turned to leave, but he grabbed my arm, trying to stop me. We stared each other down before the girl pulled on his arm to get him to follow her. "I'll be checking out that clinic, I just hope whatever I find there isn't crap like some doctors doing evil science junk with a clinic as a front." with that I turned around and left, making up my mind as to what I had to do next. Was it stupid? Immensely, but there are few things I hate more than corrupt cops, murders, and cover-ups. It's why, even though I wasn't working anywhere important, I took pride in my government job back home. Plus, this reeked of a cover-up for something bigger than me.
After waiting a few hours, it wasn't hard to find the person who cleaned the place. The janitor had just come outside and started smoking a cigarette when I came up behind him and put him in the sleeper my grandfather taught me. Laying him against the wall just next to the door, I snagged his keys and made my way inside before I started hearing voices down the hall and ducked into a janitorial closet. "You're sure we're secure here?, I don't need someone discovering our little experiment." "Don't worry, my brothers and I will handle any unwanted interruptions." "Just to be safe, I'm going to burn the clinic tomorrow night, get rid of any evidence." the voices trailed off as they made their way elsewhere in the building, allowing me to slip out and find an empty office that had seen recent use.
Quickly picking the lock on the filing cabinet, I managed to find a name I recognized, Max, as well as several others with a stamped word on them, Mirakuru. "Oh, grok, just what I needed." I shook my head and tucked various folders into my coat before slipping out, doing my best to make it look like nobody was there. As I slipped out of the building and slipped into an alley way, a hand grasped my shoulder, causing me to jump, only to find someone I wasn't sure I was ready to encounter. Standing at just over 6 feet and towering over me was a man in a green hood with eye shadow or grease paint over his eyes. "You shouldn't be here" "You're" I paused, should I reveal what I know or play it safe.
"You're the vigilante, right? The Hood?" Best not to reveal all my cards just yet. He just stared at me, his eyes practically glowing in the shadow his hood created on his face. "Look, I was just investigating this so those two teenagers didn't get caught up in something dangerous, there's already dead people from whatever is going on." He continued to stare silently before asking in what had to be a fake deep voice for me to give him whatever I'd found. "Look, I know you've got this covered, but be careful, these guys are ubers and can break a normal man like a twig." With that, he nodded and shot an arrow into the nearest building, launching himself up onto the rooftops. "That's so cool" I muttered, quietly trying not to geek out, as I watched him vanish into the night.
