SANITY LINE
Episode 02 - Answers
“So, you’re telling me that this sort of behavior isn’t unusual.”
“It’s not unusual in the context.”
Niles had been made to drag along Dr. Mallard all the way back to his favourite diner and usual thinking-place – a greasy spoon joined named LeStapps. The coffee was rank, the burgers were charcoal-coated grease, and the milkshakes – which Donny seemed to prefer – had the thickness and texture of unset cement.
He was somewhat pleased to find the academic uncomfortable in such a setting. “You’re telling me that ritualistic suicide only after painting the walls with your own blood is contextually normal.”
Donny looked at the waitress, who was glaring at them. “Please keep your voice down. If this case isn’t under a publication ban, it will be soon.”
Niles shrugged.
“All I’m saying, Detective, is that it’s not unusual behavior for highly-radicalized members of the cult to which Ms. Creena nominally belongs. It’s fallen out of vogue, certainly, but so has her cult.”
“Agency Division numbers suggest there’s probably about a hundred more of them out there, somewhere.”
“It used to be a major subset of the Tererran Ethnic Religion. Which I would have thought you’d known, being Tererran yourself.”
The detective gave a defensive shrug, sipping his coffee as he glanced aside. “I grew up in Kraterburg and the 20th century. What exactly are we looking at here, then? Another rash of suicides?”
“I don’t want to sensationalize it. If the details get out, certainly, it could be a mass suicide. Then again, if it only leaks in part…”
“Terror attacks. Like the 90s.”
“Very likely. We’re stumped either way, really. “
---
Kraterburg, etymologically speaking, was the Fortress in the Volcano. Historically, this was actually true – it, or rather, the Old City, was constructed on the only solid rock for miles of lowland fens that surrounded it, using the natural crater-walls of a mostly-dormant caldera for their protection.
Nowadays, very little of the old city infrastructure, except the access tunnels (the Jupiter Gate having been widened into a three-lane thoroughfare serving government workers, mostly, and the Mars Gate, which remained a ceremonial passage for certain events) remained. The same war that had created the Union had flattened much of her ancient capital, leaving most of the structures no more heritage than the turn of the 20th century would allow, with one exception – the campus of the College of Judges.
Sparing the longer and more tedious political science discussions, the College served as the three major branches of governance in the Union – the Executive Council, the so-called Jury of Peers (which functioned as a Legislative rather than Judicial Body), and the actual Judiciary itself. It was also the location of the headquarters of the entirety of Agency Division.
Agency had taken as its own the warren of tunnels – both natural cavern-systems of the volcano and the excavations of the previous governments – that honeycombed the area beneath the campus, beneath even the sewers. The complex network was so extensive that there were sections of it entirely unmapped – agency simply walled off the area they were using, expanding only as necessary.
The ability to be headquartered on the very sites where you were undertaking Preventative Archaeology exercises had been a source of power, all dangers aside. Many and perverse were the ancient secrets uncovered here.
Like the off-gassing of rotting life at the base of a lake, the influences of such knowledge bubbled up into the Old City, where sensitive and inquisitive minds could catch fleeting glimpses of knowledge better left forgotten. With them, the knowledge had spread like a blight. Spores lodged in the fur, so to speak.
Agency was there to contain this, and other poisons. Nobody, yet, had the truth of the origins of the Cult of the Eye, but it was known that their bleak magic was drawn from many of the same sources thus-abandoned.
Beneath the Zaxtonian Union, it was beyond dispute that something lay dreaming. Nobody was quite sure what.
However, Agency was not the only authority on such matters, though they certainly considered themselves the only legitimate one. Niles had bid his (unknown) Agency Handler goodbye in Kraterburg the day before, overnighted on one of the slower (and cheaper) passenger trains, and was now “slumming it” in a rental in one of the poorer sections of the new city, outside the confines of the caldera.
He pulled the car around behind an old warehouse. It was occupied and leased by a small-time automotive repair concern, surrounded by a few blocks worth of junkyard. The company was so old and had such a poor reputation that people simultaneously dismissed concerns of how it could possibly still be operating, while being unable to claim having ever hired the place.
The company itself was a front, having changed hands about a dozen times before it was finally acquired by the current owners, who used the warehouse and its own extensive basements for their own private functions. Niles had never before been allowed below the ground floor, where he met – often in one of a dozen storage rooms – with his contact.
The gang – as he understood it to be, as decades of police work had conditioned him to think of them as – called themselves the Grey Angels. They weren’t involved in racketeering, protection, or drugs. He’d never brought up a Grey Angel on any charge more serious than a weapons ownership violation. From what he had been able to piece together – which wasn’t much more than what anyone else could put together, the group were simply violent. Surgically violent, striking only at the fringes, in whatever way must have suited either their financial backers, or perhaps simply the highest bidder.
Grey Angels, when on what they called “clan business”, never went anywhere without the protection of mask and pseudonym. The masks were unique, so far as Niles knew, a sort of underground heraldry for the Angel in question. His contact among them was a man who called himself Scion. He always met Niles in a heavy grey coat, black trousers and boots, with a deep hood behind which was a mask of black, peppered with a galaxy of silver dots. His hands, when Scion rarely exposed them, were protected with those heavy, blue surgical gloves that forensic techs hated. Scion existed, as near as Niles could tell, to keep him abreast of the gang’s activities – and their interactions with the Cult of the Eye.
“You’re early. There’s coffee for you on the table, as usual.”
Niles looked to the side-table – the only piece of furniture in the room – and found that there was, indeed, a sealed bottle of water, sealed packet of instant coffee crystals, a clean kettle, and a clean glass. He was amused by Scion’s respect of an appropriate level of paranoia… but he wouldn’t be drinking anything from a man to whom he could not assign a face. “I’m fine. You got my email.”
“I did, which is the only reason I came back.”
“Back?”
“I was vacationing in Massachusetts,” he said, moving on brusquely so as not to allow further questions. The message was received loud and clear by the detective. “You have concerns regarding the death of Gloria Creena.”
“Agency Division considered a crime of national importance and assigned me a… what did he call himself. Cultural Anthropologist.”
The other gave a nod. “They would, considering it was somewhat embarrassing that someone managed to kill someone in what amounted to a government facility.”
“Someone under maximum security, no less. For a moment, I thought it might have been one of your boys.”
“We have better things to do than trifle with the members of the Cult who are already in custody for their crimes.” Scion said, looking away slightly. Niles found it very difficult to read him. “But that’s not why you contacted me.”
Niles had to admit that Scion was right – in point of fact, when it came to discerning motivation, he almost always was. He was so much better than Niles at playing the social engineering game, that Niles often wondered if he could trust his usually-reliable impressions of the man. “Right. The anthropologist told me that certain markings at the scene, which I sent to you, were inconsistent enough with the work of the Cult as to make it look more like a murder intended to appear as a suicide, than an actual suicide.”
“And you wanted a second opinion from experts in the activities of her particular band of lunatics.”
A reluctant nod from the detective. “You understand, of course, that this is all in the strictest confidence.”
“Ah, Detective Clayton, you are truly a prince among men.”
Scion reached under his coat, producing a manila envelope. “Let’s have a thorough look, shall we?”
The photos were no less grisly than the scene itself – Scion had been spared only the images of the decedent herself, being as he was not a medical expert. The photographs – created from the digital stills that the Angel had been sent – were well-loved already, being bent and smudged. They had very clearly received the due inspection.
“Your handler is being not entirely untruthful – though they’re rarely totally honest or dishonest, in any event. Be that as it may, he does have a point. These sorts of markings, and the arrangement of the body (according to my less-than-perfect reading of the blood on the floor) are not in accordance with the cult’s preferred method of sacrifice. This is an older rite of theirs, less frequently conferred.”
“What are you saying?”
“Two things, my dear detective. Firstly, you need look no further for the perpetrator of the scene than wherever the coroner left her. Secondly: You will find she is still very much alive.”
---
“Here you are, madam.” The waiter sat down an elegant platter in front of the artist’s lady of the evening. “White pork char siu and steamed mushroom rice with bak bon dzhow.”
“Thank you.”
“For you, sir – Seafood Birdsnest.”
“Thank you.”
The artist, by the name of Emir Jawad, considered the plate of his guest with a cool eye, while she delicately picked up a piece of the barbeque pork, dipping it directly in the dish of white sauce she had been served, and eating it with some great delight. He was offended on religious grounds – pork of course being Haraam – but the greater offense was to follow.
“I don’t recall seeing that listed on the menu.”
His guest gave him a warm, smug smile, brushing a thick curl of dark hair out of her face. “It’s not. I happen to know the chef. It’s a regional specialty of his.”
Directly translated, with some liberty taken, bak bon dzhow was Long Pork White Sauce.
---
There was something that always nagged, a sense that could not be deprived. Vidcund never felt alone in his isolation tank, though he never had a sense of anything other than this being proper. Whatever he was feeling in the tank was some part of himself, some great multitude of parts, that for some reason he could only feel when all other feeling was forbidden to him. Every time he went under, he felt that much closer to understanding this perception. It felt akin, to him, to the sensation of knowing where your hand is, in relation to the other parts of the body – proprioception, as it was called.
It was out there, somewhere, or they – of late, he had come to think of the perception as having multiple components. He just had to keep chasing after it, and, like all other things, it would become clear to –
The sudden flood of light into his tank called him, reeling, back into reality.
“We have a problem,” his supervisor stood there rather calmly with a towel ready in her hand. “Actually, several problems.”
Fifteen minutes later, Vidcund was holding a drink in his hand that was in every way a perfectly ordinary mint hot chocolate, save for the rather supplemented caffeine and protein content. He was immaculately dressed, as always, leather-gloved hands protecting the paper cup from cooling too quickly while he considered what was being shown to him. In the dark of the room, the displays reflected off of his rectangular AR sunglasses.
“0815 this morning. Niles Clayton – of the National Police Force, and under your supposedly watchful eye – arrives in Kraterburg. He reports in at the Campus of the College of Judges in order to make his report to his superiors. Personally.”
“That would suggest he was also there to receive either a commendation or a reprimand. I trust we have a transcript of the conversation.”
“Naturally.”
“And?”
“High Sherriff Vaillo requested clarification on the nature of the scene of the death of Professor Johansson. Particularly the bathroom you had scrubbed.”
“If the cleaning crew had done their job properly, the whole apartment could have been scrubbed. Or the bathroom could have been re-filthened, as suited them.”
The supervisor nodded her acknowledgement. “Either way, it’s something you’re going to have to figure out how to clarify.”
“My cover to Niles doesn’t include that case.”
“Find a way to bridge the gap. We’re too short-staffed to have two agents assigned to a bloody detective.”
Vidcund sipped his drink. He had grown beyond the need for acknowledging commands, and his supervisors had all grown beyond the custom of expecting them. If he was told to do something, it could be counted on as done. “You mentioned multiple problems.”
“Right. Problem two: 0917 this morning, we trace our little Knight Errant to this facility, owned by Tiger Automotive.”
Vidcund was familiar with that particular web of lies. “There’s no such thing as Tiger Automotive.”
“Right. He was meeting with the Grey Angels. We believe Scion, though it’s impossible to tell for sure. They’re remarkably thorough in their defences against remote viewing.”
Vidcund considered that, as an image of Scion was flashed on the screen along with some statistics that matched what his glasses were currently reminding him of. Scion was an almost complete unknown. No listed date of birth, hometown, blood type. All they had to go on was a list of known engagements (the Agency euphemism for violent, usually criminal, incidents) and an overall Threat Assessment Ranking of A. The second-highest Agency acknowledged ranking.
Vidcund had the good-guy equivalent of the highest ranking – he was considered S-Proficient.
“… What the hell would a police officer be doing talking directly with a member of a criminal syndicate on their home turf?”
“We don’t know, but as you know, they’re as much a thorn in our side as they are for the police. Either way, this should be discouraged. You may go so far as to try to implicate them in the cult’s activities. After all, it’s not entirely untrue.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but Detective Clayton is the closest thing the NPF have to an expert on the cult. Its possible he already knows of the… rivalry between the two groups.”
“Do what you can. Now, onto the third case.”
How long was I out? “There’s more?”
“Just one other. A break in at the Terrwald Precinct Morgue. The body of Gloria Creena was stolen. A fairly sophisticated attack, too. There’s no security data to go over. Your pet cop is en route to look into it as we speak.”
Vidcund glanced just barely upward to see the time at the edge of his glasses. “Ah. I think I can head him off.”
“Good luck, Agent.”
Do you think we should suspend him? He was exposed to it, after all.
+> His histamine response matched his account of the situation. What’s more, he’s shown negative for all interactions. Even on psychological testing. Keep an eye on his progress and report back to me if there’s any change.
---
Vidcund, or rather, Donny Mallard, was rather pleased to see that the area was much less heavily populated than the original crime scene had been. The morgue itself – specifically “Cold Storage” – had been cordoned off, as had the corridor from it to the back entrance, and any other room off of that passage. Only Niles, and a few technicians busy photographing, printing, and doing all those other flashy crime-fi tricks that CSI Technicians did to try and identify the perpetrators of a crime.
“I got here as soon as I could, Detective.”
Niles did a poor job of concealing his contempt. Vidcund suspected it was on purpose, and couldn’t have complained in the least. He had been cultivating such an attitude intentionally. It made him less repulsive, than if he had been suspiciously friendly. “I didn’t send for you.”
Vidcund smoothed right over this with a casual shrug, and launched into a routine to determine how honest Niles was prepared to be with him. “Are the others finished with their inventory? Was anything else missing, apart from the body?”
“No. We thought the video recordings were missing, or the drives were damaged, or physically missing as well. It turns out they weren’t, just the computer hosting them was.”
“Was damaged, you mean?”
"Right. Some sort of electrical problem. The disks are being analyzed.”
Vidcund considered that highly unusual. He certainly wasn’t a computer science expert. There were any of a hundred components in a computer that could fail on a computer and render it inoperable without damaging the hard-drive, but it was a difficult task to imagine a failure mode that would damage one of those components without meddling.
Then again, it wasn’t unbelievable the computer had been tampered with. “Have we figured out how they entered and exited?”
“Sort of,” Niles frowned at his advisor for a lengthy moment.
“... Actually, I’d better show you this. I’m fairly certain it’s just graffiti, but you being an expert on people and symbols and whatnot...”
The agent frowned behind Niles’ back as he followed him through the halls. The morgue, which would have been somewhat eerie to a normal person anyway, was somewhat the worse for being so empty of activity, and yet so brightly lit and well-maintained. What was more, that Niles would suddenly enlist his help willingly meant that whatever was bothering him went beyond the usual gang signs.
Niles set his hand on the rear exit door, pushing it open. “We believe the suspect or suspects entered the building through the rear door of the complex. I’m also willing to guess that at least one of them was a staff member. No sign of forced entry, and I looked at the lock under pretty strong magnification, just to make sure, though I’m trying to get it removed for a closer look.”
On the back of the black-painted door was a yellow, twisted triskelion with a stylized eye, done crudely in yellow spray paint. Vidcund found the glyph singularly striking, though he could not say why. He didn’t recognize it, and while he felt he would never quite forget it, he belatedly snapped a photo with his smartphone to aid in further research.
“Any clue what that could be, Doctor Mallard?”
“Not yet. I’ll let you know if I find anything more concrete.”
“You do that. Pop along, now.”
Niles did not expect to find that there had ever been forced entry. If Scion was not steering him wrong, however impossible it seemed, Gloria could easily have walked out of this building all on her own.
---
The artist’s guest loomed over his battered and broken body, a faint smirk on her face. “Gone a little soft around the edges, have we?”
He tried, and failed, with his fleeting consciousness, to formulate a fitting retort. Her smirk deepened, and she turned to the man who had attacked them, as calmly and coolly as one might turn to the maitre d’.
“You’re late, Crowe.”
The huge, heavily-tattooed man seized the pendant that hung around her neck, snapping the chain it hung upon with a sharp jerk of his wrist. “You weren’t easy to find. You’re never easy to find.”
She kissed him on the cheek. “You found me anyway.”
“... I’m hungry, Gloria.”
“Bring him with us. And give me his phone for a moment.”
---
Vidcund loved heights. Most people avoided them where they could, or treated them, at the very least, with a healthy respect, but not him. Some of the buildings in Kraterburg were so tall that you could reliably stand on the very edge of the roof without alarming a soul below, and those were the buildings he sought out to get a fix.
You could get a real sense of the scope of humanity, from a good height, and yet he knew that there was still the better part of 400 km between how high he stood, and how high the highest human settlement was.
A sobering, but irrelevant thought.
He’d come up here to get some perspective. As it was, his current case seemed to be getting out of hand. He was no closer, yet, to discovering who had supplied Johansson with the Pnakotic Manuscripts, or indeed what the shapeless, organic mass in the bath-tub had been. The disappearance of a corpse was a needless complication.
And yet, with that strange symbol on the door, he wondered if they couldn’t be related. The computers at the office were running the image through analysis, looking for a source for it to have come from, or at least be an imitation of.
He wasn’t entirely surprised his phone was going off. His glasses told him it wasn’t Niles, so he answered it as was his custom. “Därk.”
The unfamiliar woman at the other end of the phone had a voice like ice. “Agent. Are you having fun up there?”
Vidcund kept his face expressionless as he stepped down from his ledge and made, rather quickly, for the door. This was an Agency-secured office building. However this person was looking at him, he would be safe indoors. “Who is this?”
“Nobody you need concern yourself with, I assure you. Are you having any luck with your search?”
“Who is this?” Greater urgency. Someone knew something they shouldn’t.
“You’re wasting your time. The real threat is not some dead doctor who dug up information he shouldn’t. It’s the living you need concern yourself with.”
“You understand I can trace this call.”
The woman sounded as innocent as a babe in church. “... What call, Agent?”
As he pulled the phone away to look at the dead screen and non-responsive controls, Vidcund could still hear her laughter on the other end.