Dom breathed in. He held the pistol firm in both hands. Arms and shoulders level and still. His vision started to narrow, all that mattered was the gun's sights and the target beyond them. The sensation of touch drained from his lower body and fixated on the metal of the trigger. Dom breathed out. His body statuesque, focus absolute. He squeezed the trigger and the pistol barked. Newton's third law sending a wave of force back through his arms and across his body. In the same instant, splinters erupted from the bullseye of the wooden target set 50 metres away.
Dominic Rorke was not the sort of person you would expect to see in Indigo. 'The leisure dome' was the territory of the youth. A middle-aged cop was out of place at best and a buzzkill at worst. However, the youth's ownership of Indigo had a silver lining. At 6:30 in the morning, it was deserted. Dom had the guns, lanes and building all to himself. He wasn't an antisocial man, but the difference in focus achieved when alone compared to with others was like night and day.
He slipped the magazine out of the gun and placed them both down on a table. Crossing across the booths he approached the rack like a kid at a sweet shop. He could treat himself to a few rounds of something powerful. The rifles all looked equally threatening and potent, before his eye caught the Javelin. He'd held one before, but never got the chance to fire it. They were designed for operation in vacuum; a single accelerated 4 inch round could penetrate the hull of a ship, or rip straight through an environment suit. He lifted it from its hooks with both hands. It was heavy, and would be six times heavier on Earth. Back at his booth, he brought the scope to his eye. Adjusting to it as he scanned the row of targets. Readying the round was intuitive, and then the Javelin was live. He flicked the bipod legs down and took a seat. Centering the target with the reticle was easy, and then came the focus. Dom breathed in.
Before he could pull the trigger, his handheld blared. He released his grip and the stock hit the table. Leaving the barrel pointing at the ceiling. He snatched up the handheld and read the message. There was an urgent summon to the station, with no other details.
Typical. He ran his hand through his short and thinning black hair and let out a long breath through his nose. The message glowed on the screen for a few more seconds before it faded to black. Placing his hand on the stock, he studied the Javelin with a solemn smile. Maybe next time.
He shot up, sending the chair sliding behind him. He swiftly unloaded the rifle then grabbed it by the barrel and swung it back onto its hooks. Before turning on his heel, retrieving his handheld and hurrying out of the range.
Two ants were parked nearby and Dom headed for the closest, making sure to dodge the missing patch of Grip on the sidewalk. The paintwork was a black and white checkerboard, as were the seats inside. In the lights' indigo glow, he selected his destination as the station, and the doors whined closed. He lounged across two seats and considered the summon.
Plato, and Luna as a whole, had an extremely low crime rate. Some said it was because everyone was too busy to bother with crime. The mutually assured destruction of system-wide collapse keeping everybody working and on their best behaviour. Dom tended to disagree. He believed the president, that the distinct lack of violent crime was due to the distinct lack of poverty. That no one need turn against the law out of desperation to escape debt or hunger. Her detractors called this reasoning little more than propaganda in her ideological war against Earth. But Dom had seen what good people were capable of when the going got tough.
10 years ago now, he had achieved his lifelong ambition and joined the Atlanta P.D. Earning his badge right when the riots were at their worst, just before the oil ran out. It was only a week later, when the sun rose on the urban battlefield. Pink rays of dawn illuminating the tear gas filled streets. That Dom found himself shaking in his torn riot gear, his baton dripping with the blood of the desperate and starving. The shame almost killed him, leaving him a husk. The idealism that had driven the first 30 years of his life lay broken and dead on those streets. That husk wandered onto a shuttle with nothing to lose, and was dealt luck from the universe that he didn't deserve. Now he could still be a cop, but under leadership he believed in. Actually helping the innocent and punishing the selfish. Like he was promised as a child.
His second chance dealt with much lower stakes. The police force on Luna was as minor as the crime it was established to tackle. There were a handful of teams with no more than ten members, his team currently having only five. They were modestly funded and well respected by civilians, which was always of importance to Dom. Alexander Manning's military was where Luna bared her teeth. With manpower and funding an order of magnitude higher. The police and military co-operated often. Alexander was something of a superior officer to Dom, but the whole system was fluid.
The indigo lights shifted to an ocean blue as the ant neared the station. Urgent summons were rare but not unheard of. Most days on the job consisted of trivial but rewarding work. Settling disputes or dealing with inebriated teenagers. The nastiness came almost exclusively from the Kodes. The brother and sister led posse of undesirables was the closest thing Luna had to a gang. They were behind around 95% of the serious crime within Plato, and Dom was probably about to be briefed about their latest scene. On the off-chance that this was something else, then Dom would consider the interruption necessary.
He almost didn't notice that the ant had stopped, jolting to attention as the doors slid open. He clambered out and straightened himself before striding into the station. The front desk and waiting area was abandoned, like normal. Dom vaulted over the desk and pushed open the door to the back offices.
There was a pang of embarrassment as he realised the other four were already here and he was the last to arrive. He must have missed some earlier summon, possibly drowned out by the gunfire. The twins looked up with brief smiles as he entered, that faded in an instant as they turned back to their terminals. Neil maintained his unblinking gaze upon his monitor as his fingers blurred across the keyboard. Which was nothing unusual. Vince had his back to Dom and was studying a recording on a large display. He was clearly pretending to have not noticed Dom coming in.
Despite having known and worked with them for over 5 years, Dom still had trouble telling Sasha and Esme apart. They both grew their hair long, obscuring their face behind waved thick black curtains. Their tan skin was a shade lighter than Dom's own. To differentiate between them, he would have to go by context. If she was speaking up and rattling questions, chances were it was Esme. Sasha was more of an observer, saving her thoughts until she had worked a strong logical chain between A and B. Regardless they were both excellent detectives and close friends. Perhaps something more if things had panned out differently and Dom was born a decade later.
Neil still hadn't blinked since Dom walked in. The scrawny and pale kid looked like he'd spent a substantial amount of time underground before he moved to Luna. But he possessed an apathy about how he was observed that Dom envied. He sat hunched at his desk, a monochromatic T-shirt creased around his arms, pages of text and blurry images reflecting in his grey eyes. The scrap of black hair on his head jutted out in short spikes pointing in random directions.
Dom walked through the office and the tense atmosphere. Coming to a stop at Vince's side.
"Good to see you." Vince said. In a way that sounded like a lousy compromise between: 'Good Morning' and 'Nice of you to show up'
"What's the situation?" Dom replied. Vince turned to him. His hair was a brown mop, his eyes and mouth were pulled to the centre of his face in a way which always reminded Dom of a rodent. His white and flawless skin was thoroughly moisturised, and he always smelt of perfume.
"See for yourself." The recording restarted and Dom could feel that the whole room was watching it. Silence dominated throughout the runtime... and for about ten seconds once the recording had finished. He felt 8 eyes on him waiting for a response.
"Play it again." He said. Okay, looks like we do have something different.
He heard the tapping of keyboards return behind him, leaving only himself and Vince watching the repeat. Solving puzzles was what the job boiled down to. Whether it was a typical investigation or finding the right path to de-escalation. It was all solving puzzles. Identifying unknowns and working the logic.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
The recording wasn't a fake. It would be insulting his team's intelligence to suggest that. The collective gloomy attitude confirmed they had already verified it within acceptable scrutiny. His next gut reaction was even more ridiculous. There was nothing supernatural here. When she approached closest, you could see light defining curves on her body. Monsters and aliens were still non-zero possibilities, but the rational theory was that this was a human being in a suit. So then Dom arrived at the first, but probably not the most important, useful question.
What the hell kind of suit is that? Spacesuits were more than just thick clothing. They were complex, robust, wearable computers. Their design had improved a lot since the days of Apollo, but still, nobody anywhere had anything that looked like this. The flexibility alone was groundbreaking, but more impressive was how it was still keeping a human being alive in space. The brute strength alone needed to survive vacuum. As well as the life support systems. Even the minor currents coursing through it to repel moondust. Where was the oxygen? Can she even see out of it?
Vince was staring from the corners of his eyes, prompting a comment.
"Where did we get this?" Dom asked.
"This was uploaded to about every site you can imagine at 6:00 sharp." Vince said, walking over to his desk and scooping up his handheld. "Metadata shows it was recorded at 5:34, seismologists from the University arrived on the scene at 6:09. It looks like the victim was in the process of stealing a meteoric sample when he was attacked." Vince seemed to be enjoying letting Dom know all the details he'd missed by being late. "They recovered the buggy and his body, but the raw recordings had been wiped." Vince leaned back against the desk. "And the meteorite was gone."
Anything clear on satellite? Was the next obvious question, but again, his team would have already pursued that.
"What do we have on the victim?" Dom asked instead to the room.
"His name's Ty Jackson." One of the twins (probably Esme) said. She looked up from her computer and brushed the hair from her face. "Son of a billionaire on Earth, ran away to Luna after a scandal."
"What kind of scandal?"
"The exact kind you'd expect." Esme replied. A quick smile appeared then disappeared on her sister's face.
"Fourteen women spoke out against him at the same time." Neil said, his face didn't look away from his screen as he spoke. "Then they all hushed, Ty ran up here while things cooled off." Neil at last released the mouse and placed his fingertips together as he met Dom's eyes. "But the most important part is the discussion. There was nothing in the media unsurprisingly, but online he's been public enemy number one for weeks. People across the solar system are appraising this video of his murder as justice." Neil's tone was matter of fact and his face emotionless. Dom sunk his head in thought, then leaned over his shoulder at Vince.
"Has the President been informed?"
"Alexander's briefing her now." So nobody knows anything. Dom reasoned. People were stalling, kicking the problem up the chain of command until it was somehow solved. Surrendering to someone else once it seemed options were exhausted. Dom wasn't going to do that.
"So what do we know?" He said, in a tone that demanded some response.
"Female, around five foot ten." Neil replied, slamming his palm against his desk to emphasise the brevity of the profile.
"And she's murdered an evil rich boy." Esme added.
"In a very nice suit." Her twin mumbled. Dom nodded, he was glad someone else was fixating on that.
"Also her proficiency in manoeuvring in low gravity." Dom said to no-one in particular. He finally walked to his desk and pulled out the chair, needing to get the ideas floating around his head down on paper. The blank page glared up at him for a few seconds, before he began to cover it in scribbled notes. Two minutes later, a promisingly small amount of the page was blank. Identify unknowns, work the logic. He set the pen down and leaned back in his chair. In one section, in scruffy lines of ink he had written: Perfect crime, no witnesses. Why upload to everyone?
"I suppose the press are having a field day?" He asked in Neil's vague direction. There were several seconds of silence and Dom was about to repeat himself when Neil spoke up.
"Only a few outlets have come out with anything so far. Journalists are running out of ways to admit that no-one knows anything whilst filling an article." Dom turned back to his notes and was reaching for his pen when Neil continued.
"But, the Lunar Times did just post their initial article." Neil made some frantic mouse and keyboard inputs then squinted at his screen as he scanned the article. "And it's the exact same again, paragraphs of drama with no insight. Everyone's waiting for an official statement from President Cast." He leaned back into his chair with force. "They have given her a stupid name though..." Something in his tone captured the room's attention, and he waited for everyone to stop typing before continuing.
"Void Dancer." He drawled with insincere gravitas. Glances bounced around the room.
"Well, it works." Sasha said. The room slumped back into the gloom he had found it in. Dom knew this feeling, the powerlessness and frustrating impotence. When there was no clear path ahead and too many unknowns. Alexander and the military might know more, but they probably wouldn't hear anything until after the President had been briefed.
For now, they had a barren crime scene with zero prints or DNA. A solar system full of angry people with sufficient motive. And no timeline to recreate, the killer had shared everything willingly. They could try investigating recent environment suit breakthroughs, see who had access. But the most critical information would fall under military secrecy. They could try visiting the scene themselves. But it was highly unlikely that anything useful had been missed by the recovery teams. They could investigate Ty Jackson himself, see if he spoke to anyone or if anyone recognised who he was. He must've gotten information on the meteorite from somewhere... There's something.
Dom fired up his computer. Vince was pacing across the office, scratching up and down the length of his arm. Whatever spark of enthusiasm Dom had managed to muster was soon snuffed out. For all his flaws, Ty was good at laying low. His handheld records showed he'd contacted no-one, except for a kid at the Uni that he'd bribed. That kid had come forward immediately and shared everything. Volunteering his handheld records for evidence. Ty's 'vacation' to Luna was well known, he wouldn't have been stupid enough to chat with anyone face to face. So the only person he had any contact with was a broke student trying to make some extra cash. This student was scared enough by repercussions that he surrendered to the authorities before they were even on to him. Needless to say, the only person that came from this line of enquiry didn't fit the profile of the killer.
Another team was searching Ty's apartment. The single room was found barren. Nothing out of place, no sign of trouble and no laptop or computer to dig into. They'd keep searching, but the chances they found some clue hidden away were slim.
Defeated, Dom wrote Void Dancer at the top of his page to fill the time. She had appeared from nowhere, murdered a man, then returned back to nowhere. Without a trace or single clue. What were they missing? He studied his sheet, hoping to draw out some hidden piece of the problem. For a moment, his attention wandered from the scrawled notes to the white empty that surrounded them. What were they missing?
"Neil." Dom blurted out with more excitement than he'd meant. "Void Dancer is the talk of the internet right?" Neil's face contorted to a grimace of confusion.
"Yeah... She's all anyone's talking about... Wh-"
"But who isn't?" Dom said as he stood up. "Who isn't saying anything?" Neil blinked and stared into space for a few moments. Vince stopped pacing.
"You mean the Kodes." Neil whispered as his fingers snapped back onto his keyboard. The Kodes 'gang' never stopped spewing brainless commentary across social media. With every change in the status quo, some clever observation had to be made. Yet they seemed to be keeping uncharacteristically quiet concerning Void Dancer. A grin started to spread across Neil's face.
"Yeah, yea- okay. They haven't said anything. Nothing from any of them in the last 24 hours." Dom walked around Neil's desk and watched him at work.
"They should have said something idiotic by now." Vince said, joining them. Dom looked up and across the office at the twins.
"What intel do we have on planned Kodes activity for today?" He asked. Sasha tapped out a brief command and responded.
"They have a weapons pickup in vacuum... 10 minutes ago." She tapped out another command. "We haven't got confirmation if they've received it." Esme glanced between her sister and Dom with growing excitement. Now they were onto something.
With every case, chasing the object of interest meant following lapses in normalcy. Who hadn't shown up for work? What job hadn't been done? Who was angry when they were always kind? Void Dancer had emerged from the dark and murdered a man. At the same time a reliable aspect of Lunar life had lapsed. It was like a footprint.
"Okay here's what we're gonna do." Dom started. "We can't do much until Alexander gives us a bit more to work with." If there even is anything more to work with. Dom thought to himself. "So we're gonna quickly check up on our favourite people. Maybe it'll tell us something, maybe this leads nowhere. Either way, it's a thread to pull on."
Esme had already started powering down her computer and gathering her things. Dom continued.
"I want you three to check out this weapons pickup, Vince and I will pay a visit to HQ." From the corner of his eye, Dom could see Vince flush with annoyance. He looked as if he might say something but Neil interrupted.
"I'd rather stay here. I'm still working on finding a source on the uploads, and now I want to monitor activity on all Kodes channels."
"That's fine, we can handle ourselves." Esme said.
"Stay safe and report anything immediately." Dom said. They gave a synchronised nod in reply. Vince was already at the door, making a point that he was waiting on Dom.
Looking behind at the display, the final frame of the recording covered the wall. Years from now, Dom reckoned he would look back on this puzzle as one of the best.