Richter locked eyes with Olivia as he took the proffered manila folder. “No need to get your panties in a twist, Olivia.” As the words left his mouth, he studied her face. Olivia’s nostrils flared, and tension played around the corners of her mouth. Richter noted these changes with satisfaction. He’d chosen the remark to infuriate her. Although, he wasn’t sure if his refusal to call her Jones or the reference to her undergarments pissed her off more.
As soon as Olivia opened her mouth to begin a biting retort, Richter preempted her. “Besides, today WAS suppose to be my day off, and there were complications getting here.” Richter gestured to the media scrum taking place at the gates; the reporters had begun to disperse.
Olivia glared daggers at him. “Just read the damn file,” she snapped. “Another personal comment like that, and I’ll file a report that’ll have you back in sensitivity training so fast your head’ll spin.”
Richter grimaced. His nemesis, sensitivity training. A week surrounded by effeminate, weak-jawed men and bossy women, who spent every minute telling him what he wasn’t allowed to say. To add insult to injury, after his first re-offence, central had docked him a week’s salary to pay for it.
Richter’s first joint assignment with Olivia had ended prematurely. He’d been pulled off the case for a stint in sensitivity training. They’d never told him why, but he’d been ‘reassigned’ the day after she’d confronted him about calling her Olivia. It didn’t take a genius —and he was one— to put two and two together. Despite their history, there was no way central would pull him off this case for sensitivity training... right?
Richter opened the file.
The first page had ‘urgent’ stamped across the top in red, block letters. Below, in black type, were the words ‘Grand Larceny: Luck 6.47YФ’. How much even was that?
Olivia must have noticed him mulling over the number because she interjected. “6.47 Yotta Phillium, ie., all the luck in the UMC. Well, almost all.” She produced two nondescript black plastic tubes. “We’ve been issued the emergency supply to ensure we catch the culprit.”
Richter looked up from the report with a growl, “Just let me read the damn report.”
Olivia stiffened, and muttered something that was either a curse or an apology; Richter wasn’t sure. He turned his eyes back to the report. Yotta. As a matter of fact, he hadn’t known what the ‘Y’ stood for; he doubted she had either. She’d probably looked it in advance up to have something to lord over him.
Skimming the report, one detail caught Richter’s eye. The criminal had left behind a calling card; a crimson sigil of a crow etched into the console. The damn vulture from outside had been right; the Crimson Crow was responsible.
A smile spread across Richter’s face. He’d been waiting for this moment all year. This time the Crow wasn’t slipping away from him. Sensitivity training, bah, central couldn’t afford to take him off this case. Nobody knew more about the Crow than him.
Richter closed the report. “Let’s get to it.” He started towards the doors, but Olivia stepped in front of him blocking the way. He fixed her with his frostiest stare, “What?”
She held out one of the black tubes. “Don’t you dare enter the crime scene without taking an infusion of luck. I’m not letting you screw this up for me, Rick.”
Richter bit back a retort. She had a point. Without luck, he’d —supposedly— be a magnet for misfortune. The whole luck business gave him a headache. He didn’t feel any less lucky. He’d even run into a nice guard, who’d let him cruise through security protocols. That had to count as good luck. Only... Richter glanced back towards the gate; the reporters were gone. If he’d been a few minutes later he’d have missed the vultures. Was cruising through security actually bad luck? Hell if he knew.
Richter uncapped the tube, removed one of the vials within and poured its contents into his palm. The golden liquid poured like water and Richter saw it strike his palm, but felt nothing. There was no sensation, no splash back. It just disappeared. Bloody unnerving. Richter replaced the cap. He didn’t feel any different. “Can we go now?”
Olivia nodded, turned, and entered the UMC building; Richter followed behind, glaring at her heels. She was right about the luck, but being ordered around by a woman, and his junior no less? Unacceptable.
The pair strode down the hallway, their UMC-issued boots clicking against the floor. The sound echoed through vacant offices and down the empty hallway. Headquarters was never like this. Every time he’d come to HQ, the halls had been so chock-a-block with paper pushers that he’d been forced to shove his way through.
Olivia slowed her pace until she was walking abreast with Richter. He saw her mouth start to open. So much for peace and quiet. “Listen, Ric— Richter,” Her correction was unusual, diplomatic even. In his experience, that meant she was about to spout some bullshit.
“I know the Crow case is important to you; it’s your Ulesian Pedlar’s Treasure—”
“My what?” Richter interjected.
“Your hopeless obsession, it’s a figure of speech.” As Olivia talked, she fiddled with the hem of uniform. “Look, you’ve been on this case for nine years, and you still haven’t caught her.”
Richter stopped walking. “Her?” Richter asked. It wasn’t a question.
His reaction seemed to amuse Olivia. She was smirking at him.
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The Crow, a woman? Preposterous. “A woman could never have eluded me.” At that, her smirk dissolved into laughter.
Richter glowered, to no effect, straightened his uniform, and started to stalk down the hallway.
Her laughter stopped, replaced with the rapid click of boots as she hurried after him. “Wait, what I was trying to say is, you’ve been chasing the Crow a long time. A fresh set of eyes might help. Let me have this crime scene; maybe I’ll turn up something new.”
Richter kept walking. She’d tried to boss him around earlier, and now she was asking? Worse, she wasimplying he needed her help. Ridiculous. He was the senior detective. He had the authority. And he intended to exercise it. “No. I’ll take the nice virginal crime scene. You can have my sloppy seconds.” He turned to face her as he delivered the verdict; there was outrage and shock in her eyes. Glorious.
He’d known the line would shock her. He’d inadvertently focus-tested it earlier. The commissioner had been meeting a political bigwig when Richter had entered and expressed his preference for a virginal crime scene. They’d thrown him out of the office and assigned him to traffic duty so fast his head had spun. Of course, he and the commissioner had laughed about it over drinks later; political types were always so sensitive.
“Rick,” she growled his name with that ‘how dare you’ tone she was so good at. He ignored her and kept walking. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw he throw up her hands in frustration. “Fine then! See if I care, add this to your long litany of failures.”
Litany!? He was flawless. The singular black mark on his record was the Crow. And today, that was going to change. There weren’t going to be any sloppy seconds for Olivia. They’d be en route to the Crow’s hiding spot before she even got a look at the crime scene.
Rounding a corner, Richter pushed past a uniformed UMC officer who was in the middle of hasty salute. He fixed the remaining officers with a look that said, ‘you’re less than dirt, don’t you dare get in my way.’
They tripped over themselves trying to get out of his way, while Richter strode through them. In their eyes, he saw a mixture of reverence and fear. That was the way it was supposed to be. This was how a hero should be treated.
Beyond the first set of uniformed officers, a set of five men were lounging on locked crates. From previous experience, Richter knew the crates contained sensitive equipment. Ludicrously expensive, sensitive equipment. The men’s carelessness with it did them no credit. To make matters worse, despite being UMC officers, they were all dressed irregularly, in irreverent civilian clothing. The five made up the entirety of the Magical Phenomenon Investigation Unit. Despite his personal distaste, Richter had requested they be summoned if the Crow stuck again. They were his secret weapon. The reason this case wasn’t going to end like the previous fifty-two Crow cases.
The nearest of the five stood and sauntered toward Richter; he wore jeans, an unzipped leather jacket, and little else. It was an affront to his rank of MPI Unit captain, if not general decency. What was his name again? B...B... it was B something anyways.
While Richter was distracted, trying to recall Captain Bradley’s name, the Captain had invaded Richter’s personal space. He now stood so close that his blonde, curly, mop of hair brushed against Richter’s nose. To make matters worse, he’d planted a hand on Richter’s shoulder. “Ricky, got your beauty sleep I see, we uh, good to go? This signal ain’t getting any stronger.”
Richter plucked the offending hand from his shoulder, and took a step backwards, relieving his nose of the tickling sensation. “No. I need to examine the scene first. I won’t have you and your... unit, traipsing all over and destroying the evidence. Twenty minutes. You can start in twenty minutes.”
“Your call. Don’t blame me if the signal’s gone though. We can’t track what ain’t there.” Bradley sauntered back over to the wall and propped himself against it.
Finally, Richter could get down to business. Behind him, he could hear Olivia chatting with the uniformed officers. Typical. This was why she’d never be his equal. You didn’t earn respect by fraternizing; you earned it by inspiring fear. Shutting out the unwanted annoyance, Richter ducked under the police tape with practiced ease.
The chamber was a small hexagonal room with a single entrance, sealed with blast doors. At each point of the hexagon, a three-hundred-sixty degree fisheye camera was mounted. The cameras recorded every centimetre of the space continuously, across every spectra of light. In the centre of the room, there was a small, transparent receptacle, about the size of a baseball, that was covered in thin metal tubes. The tubes led off the receptacle and joined together into a large bundle that disappeared into the ceiling. A ring of consoles, keyed with user-specific, biometric controls, surrounded the apparatus.
Its designers had called it the most impenetrable room in the multiverse. Richter wasn’t impressed. He’d seen better security in some of the private residences the Crow had robbed. No matter how advanced the cameras were, where was the backup system? And really, a single pair of blast doors? He’d call the security pitiful, not impenetrable.
If it weren’t for a small, crimson sigil of a crow that had been etched into one of the control panels, the room would have appeared untouched. It seemed the Crow had struck again, or a convincing copycat.
Richter’s eyes continued to scan the room, looking for any hints he might have missed on his first pass.Nothing. The Crow always left nothing.
Richter unholstered his scanner and began assessing potential hot-spots: the doorway, the receptacle, where the cables entered the roof, the first control panel, the second. Green, Green, Green, Green, Green, Grey. Everywhere, the DNA evidence matched authorized personnel, excepting the second console. Some of the buttons on that console had shown up as grey on his scan —indicating no genetic material was present. It was the Crow alright. He’d seen this at other sites; panels that saw regular use with not a scrap of genetic material on them.
Richter activated the second console using the override he’d been provided. He skimmed the logs. Sure enough, two hours prior someone had activated the emergency luck redistribution protocol. The science lady on the news had been right. Opening the details for the log entry revealed two error messages. Error 494: User ID Not Found. Error 604: Operation Failed.
Opening the detailed summary for Error 494, Richter found a string of corrupted characters in the User ID field. A clear sign the biometric controls had been overridden.
Error 604’s detailed summary was even less interesting. Luck recall — Success. Process completed in 294s; Luck reallocation — Error: No luck present in apparatus. Retrying. Error... The messages continued for several cycles, before terminating. Of course the luck was missing; the Crow had stolen it.
Richter switched the display to show the camera feeds and rewinded until the time matched the log entry. From six different angles, he saw the machine spring to life, golden fluid pouring from the metal tubes and accumulating in the receptacle. Pure liquid luck. Five minutes later, the luck stopped pouring and then vanished. One frame the receptacle was full, the next it was empty, and familiar crimson sigil had appeared on the console. But as usual, there was no sign of the Crow on the feeds.
Switching the setting on his scanner, Richter repeated his earlier survey. This time there was a single, positive signal near the second console. Magic. It was the same as last time! Perfect. Today he’d find the Crow’s roost.