Micheal kicked back from his computer and looked at the phone going wild on the mini-fridge. He picked it up and noticed it was Shannon calling at four in the morning.
“Bro, do you know what..” He trailed off.
“Get to the station right away.”
The call hung up and Micheal scooted to his desktop. He quickly pulled up the news and couldn’t help but fall back into his gaming chair.
“We don’t know when it started but a little before three thirty. Reports of gunfire started coming in hot on the emergency line for the Police. Different major residential zones where only those with a certain wealth and social status can even think of buying a home.” The reporter's eyes were wide open and they seemed to be hanging out the side of a van. “This is Capitol Hill Manors. Home to our leading politicians with over two hundred and forty-eight security guards. As you can see from the bodies, they were hit hard and heavy. The dead stretch all the way back to the burning homes. As of yet, no confirmed survivors.”
Micheal’s brow tried to greet each other and he leaned forward, freezing the video. The bodies were riddle with holes but the most important factor is that the brick wall look like it was imported from a war zone. The front end look like a runny pile of sand with gaping eye holes. Burnt silhouette attached to some parts where the wall form a small cove.
What the hell is going on? Why would anyone attack a bunch of officials and make the Government have to put a foot down?
The wooden floors felt especially cold as he walked barefoot over them. However, he ignored the discomfort and rushed into his room. Forgoing the usual work clothes for jeans, a t-shirt, and dark blue jacket to go over it. Hopping a bit, he worked on his socks, and then boots. Throwing a glance at Sally who only took one look at him while in bed with a bag of chips.
“I have to head to work. Apparently, terrorists are making a point and attacking all the state officials.” He tried to engage her in a discussion on a point that both of them might be interested in.
When he bent down to grab his badge that dropped, she didn’t spare him a glance but focused on that phone. When he dropped a knee into bed and leaned over to peck her lips, she provided him with her cheeks and shooed him away.
Instead of directly leaving like he probably would have. He stood there, twisting his badge between his fingers. “Okay, I don’t know what’s going on. What did I do that made you give me this kind of treatment?”
Sally lowered her phone and the dimpled smile faded quicker than a buzz. “What makes you think you did something? Could it not be that I’m just not feeling well?”
Not feeling well? What the fuck kind of bullshit is this? You go out in the rain when you are not feeling well? Even if you got caught out, why didn’t you call me to pick you up? How about you come up with a better lie?
Taking a deep breath, Micheal stepped back to the bed and leaned against it. “Sally, I’m trying to be a respectable person but if you are going to lie to my face. Then I think our relationship needs to be put into a proper category.”
Sally raised an eyebrow, and put the chip she was just about to eat back into the bag. “What kind of place do you think is proper then? Because I’m kind of tired of this jealous bullshit you have going on.” She tossed the covers off her legs, and threw herself off the bed. “When I want to go hang out with my girls you give me a thousands fucking questions like I’m so suspect in an interrogation room. But when it's you going out with your co-workers, you don’t even hear me bitching, huh? So you can go fuck right off with your proper category!”
She stormed off without another word and he stood there feeling baffled. How is asking where you are going in a dress that doesn’t even go down to her knees a bad thing? Matter of fact, why does she need to show off her body when she has me at home? What man would allow his woman or even want his woman to act single?
“Fuck,” Micheal said, running a hand through his hair.
Without any idea on what to say, he could only go downstairs, and grabbed his keys. Leaving without fixing probably wasn’t the best idea but everything he wanted to say might make it worse.
The sky didn’t even have a chance to stop and stretch but the streets were oddly silent. He passed through five checkpoints to his station. The underground parking lot sat packed to the point he had to go to the fourth underground floor just to find a parking spot. Many of his pals were sipping on coffee from steaming mugs.
As he waited in line, he texted Shannon who shouldn’t have gone home last night. The guy hated being home during dark when his kids were all but ready to sleep, thus taking graveyard shifts. The good thing is he never missed picking them up from school, taking them out to play in the park, and recitals.
Shannon: Bro, shit is about to get hard for you guys. Nineteen dead officials plus their families. Half that number are big time judges, businessmen, and the last half are officials who are pushing a new bill for an increase in street surveillance to cut down on crimes. Which include drones, more street cameras per zone, reducing privatized Internet, and mobile version.
Micheal: Then that means they must know who is exactly doing this. Which group is most affected by this plan?
Shannon: The list of privatized military companies to major IT companies. Not to mention various organized crime groups, and who knows how many other groups that don’t rightly prefer the government having that much control.
Micheal: It should be only this state, right? Giving our resources, we should be able to cut that all down.
Micheal stepped into the pack elevator with someone that smelled like they sprayed cologne on with a hose.
Shannon: And that is the problem. It happens in over several states and even the President suffers a fatal attack, losing nearly 80 plus national guardsmen before the tanks repel the invaders. Apparently, superhumans are the cause. Someone caught the attackers repulsing a live tank round.
“Wow,” he mumbled, and stepped off the elevator.
He quickly made his way to the armorer where the guys had the vault wide open and handed out the weapons. While another line signed for it. This shit is bad when they breach protocol just to expedite getting people out there.
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It didn’t take long to grab his weapon, sign, and move with the traffic towards the main room. The moment he walked into the Homicide department, everybody was standing around the center board. Captain Page stood with a coffee in an extra large mug, in hand. He looked like he didn’t want to be here at all.
“Now that majority of us are here. I’ll get to the point.” Captain Page pointed at the big screens. “We have a mission passed down by the higher-ups. Our division will be working on identifying any leads that the Winter-war Security firm is involved in this matter. Any and all former cases you have will be transferred to Lt. Shannon Briggs and his team.”
Someone raised their hand. “Sir, I don’t mean to say something stupid but the firm doesn’t issue it members out to outsiders. They have a strict vetting system to bring in people to whatever club the upper echelon have. And each and every member is spread out between the various Companies under D. Winter Industries.”
“Your point,” Captain Page asked, crossing his arms again.
“My point is that even if we investigate their financial status, we will not be able to pinpoint who could have participated in this kind of thing. Underneath the Winter corp is a series of privatized companies such as Someone's Energy, Kilburn Acoustics, Winter-war Security, Snow-cloud Casino, Coldfire Biotech, and new gaming company.” The black-haired guy pushed up his glasses.
“How do you know this? I don’t remember any of their files hitting my desk.” Captain Page glanced at a lady beside him in a pencil skirt who shook her head.
“My husband works inside of HQ for the entire thing. He is one of the accountants and he, often, bitch about the various bonuses for performance that the various companies get. Definitely the security guards who stop minor issues from affecting business.”
Shannon raised his hand. “How much does your husband make?”
The black-haired man turned to Shannon. “376 thousand a year without counting the various bonuses he gets for finding money-making opportunities for various employees. They have recently made an investment that increased the retirement funds of all the employees and received a hundred and fifty thousand bonus directly. This is why I say it is impossible to find out if they were involved or not.”
Captain Page rubbed his bald chin. “So what you are telling me is that all folks in the Finance division are paid well during this period? That majority of the security guards are hit with bonuses that could add up to the bonus that those Finance fucks have?”
“Shit, I’m in the wrong job,” someone muttered, near Micheal.
“Exactly, and I don’t need to mention how much potential harm comes to Actors, right?”
Shannon snorted. “Fuck, you guys will have it hard. I just researched the company net-worth, 11 billion dollars, and that is before their latest product is scheduled to be released in six months. Also they put out a contract to turn Glover bluff into a compound. Eight different reports on what it could mean for that wasteland.”
Micheal shook his head. You really have to tease them when we don’t have it good.
“Shut up, LT,” Cpt. Page barked. “Go handle those old cases. I want to see ten being completed per week!”
Shannon chuckled and motioned towards his guys to move back to a side office that was set up much like the main floor. Cubicles surrounding a white board.
“Boss, I think you are going to hate this case,” Edward pointed at the three curved screens above the white-boards. “The husband came home, he put his keys on the table in the hallway, and some kind of animal ripped him apart. There is no DNA evidence anywhere in the house from the broken patio door to the mess found in front of the door. Not a single evidence that is common of someone who should have been attacked by a vicious animal.”
Shannon walked over and snatched a file off his desk, dropping his ass on the edge. “What the fuck? Is all of them in some way similar to this?”
“No, but that is what is odd. The others have some kind of missing items like kitchen knife, fabric on the stairs, footprints, but just three are so clean but messy.” Edward pulled up three scenes which were too graphic to speak on.
Micheal rubbed his chin and opened a file resting on the edge of his desk. “This doesn’t make sense. Animals are messy eaters and they wouldn’t clean up their lost fur or paw prints. With that much blood, it should be impossible not to step into it.”
“This is why I said he will hate this case. It’s not something a human could do.” Edward pushed up his glasses and sat down, spinning left and right.
“Could this be one of those genetic mutations,” Philip asked, biting on a jerky.
“What do you mean?” Shannon tossed the file down and crossed his arms but he didn’t have the Captain mass.
Philip scratched his forearm. “Well, a few years ago, there were a bunch of reports and videos on wildlife becoming stronger and fiercer than they were before. Not allowing anything within their much larger territories. However, six months later, all this disappeared. A few fearless reporters discovered the government testing some kind of drug on convicts with life and no families.”
Micheal rolled his eyes. “Are you saying our government is responsible?”
Phillip shook his head. “No, there are private organizations that have been doing similar tests but the amount of secrecy increases after those reporters ousts a small research group. Which led me to think about the number of reports in the sandbox recently. Very violent assaults with minimum casualties on the attackers side. Unusually given they went against a bunker enemy that wasn’t trash.”
Shannon rubbed his chin and paced in front of his desk. “We possibly have a mutated entity killing people. It could possibly escape from some research center. Find out which ones are close…”
“Ironic but Coldfire Biotech research lab is within twenty miles of this scene. The only other is a government operated research approved by the Senator that got murked in the middle of the street,” Nancy said.
“How the hell do you know that?” Shannon turned to her.
“They released some plants and fruits that are amazing. Not only that but they developed a certain degree of hair and facial products that have won awards. However, I don’t believe they are working with mutated humans due to the fact that the health part of the government does inspections. Not to mention you can go online and watch drones follow some of their lead scientists who are involved in various projects.” Nancy looked a little excited.
Micheal leaned forward a little, squinting his eyes. Her slightly chubby cheeks did look a little like she applied a pink hue. Her lips were definitely not that red and her eyes couldn’t have been that dark. Her hair was ultra light brown that almost fell into the category of blond.
“Are you wearing some of their make-up now,” he asked.
Nancy rolled her eyes. “Also, they don’t need to fumble with genetic testing when they supply their flora products to various other labs. Not to mention they are working on a biofuel that is beyond safe for the environment. Their upper echelons use it on a day to day basis.”
Shannon took a deep breath and turned to the map that Edward pulled up of the animal killings. “So if Philip is right and testing is being done on humans, transforming them into raging monsters. I think it is more likely that the government is up to the task. Let’s do a walk-through of their facilities. Get a feel for how the scientists are being worked. Pay attention to the securities staff. I want to know if any of them are behaving similar to movie werewolves or animals.” He grabbed his coat off the back of the chair and headed towards the door.
Oh, boy. Micheal followed him out the door. “Shouldn’t we get a warrant before we begin?”
Shannon put a finger to his lips. “Yes, I am on my way now. We need a warrant to just walk-through and take a peek at their research data. Just to confirm they are not running tests that could possibly make super soldiers that are killing on our streets like this morning.”
Shannon jabbed the elevator door like an impatient toddler.
The rest of the crew huddle behind us looking a little too excited.
“I promise we are just taking a look around. Won’t go where they say we can’t and only want the overall data.” Shannon rushed onto the elevator and began a repeat performance. “Roger, sir. Thanks you for your time.”
“Got the warrant,” Micheal asked.
“Of course,” Shannon said, smirking.