Isabella Stone smiled narrowly and nodded as he entered the imposing vestibule of the neoclassical city hall. The elegant lady with the neat hairdo and the eye-catching glasses with the neon yellow rim looked at him with tired eyes. She always looked exhausted when he met her, even now in the early morning. Will Morgan, the head of Elysium's homicide unit, greeted her quietly and cleared his throat. He had known Isabella for a few years now and knew the difficulties of her position as secretary to the mayor. Fabio Stanford was not an ordinary character, to say the least, a little eccentric at times, to put it kindly. It was something he had experienced often enough in his position. "Would you like some coffee first, Mr. Morgan? You have ten minutes left, a little early as usual." Then she smiled again and arranged some papers on the desk in front of her.

"No, thank you. I don't want to inconvenience you," he replied calmly. Of course, he was always a little early when he had an appointment with the mayor. After all, it was the only chance he had to talk to Isabella for a few minutes. He liked her very much, but he hadn't shown it all these years. They were both married to their jobs and had made many sacrifices for their careers. Will started a little small talk with Isabella, but after a few minutes it was interrupted by a loud moan from the Mayor's room.

"Aah! Oh, God, yes! Yes! That feels so good! Come on, one more time! One more time! Faster!" Stanford's ecstatic voice came through the closed door of his ornately carved office. Isabella sighed, and the expression he knew so well, a mixture of latent despair and questioning of her own life choices, spread across her face again. Will looked at his watch: it was time, the appointment was here. He looked questioningly at the secretary, who simply waved it aside as the muffled, rhythmic moaning continued to reach their ears.

"Go on in, it's all right," she said with an expressionless voice. He rubbed his hands together briefly, adjusted his tie, and nodded. Then, with a jerk, he opened the door and entered the mayor's office.

"Oh damn I'm about to burst, oh yeah and up and down again with that long hard thing," Stanford groaned gutturally. To the right of his sprawling desk and bookshelf were three mirrors that looked like they had been brought here from locker rooms. In front of them stood Stanford himself, bare-chested, lifting and lowering a barbell with two ten-kilo weights. The muscles of his perfect arms were impressively pumped, the veins bulging. In fact, he looked like he was about to walk onto the set of one of those countless fantasy barbarian movies that were so popular at the moment. His long, flowing blond hair swirled around his exquisitely toned torso. A man as handsome as the image of an ancient god, who looked as if he held the office of mayor only as a sideline. The image was ruined, however, by tight blue jeans with stylish rips at the knees. They probably cost $300. He turned to Will, set the barbell down on the floor, and flashed him a dazzling smile. The homicide chief didn't think the rumors that Fabio owed his consistent re-election to the city's female voters were exaggerated at all. Next to him, the average man felt like the discount version of a backward primate.

"Will, glad you're here!" exclaimed Stanford, reaching for the bottle of Laser Iso Power Sport on the desk and vigorously sucking on the nipple attachment of the fitness drink.

"Good morning, Mr. Stanford, I'd better get right to it..." Morgan began, but was immediately interrupted by the mayor, who motioned for silence with an outstretched, flat hand.

"Not yet, not yet, wait a second before you start!" he said hastily, then pressed the button on his intercom, next to which the drink bottle had been resting. "Isabella, the fan, please!" he ordered at such a volume that his secretary could have easily heard the instruction without any technical aid. After only a few seconds, the door opened and Isabella hurriedly brought in a large fan, placed it on the floor in front of Stanford, plugged it in and turned it on. As she did so, she directed the airflow from the bottom up, so that the mayor's hair was constantly blowing backwards, making it look like he was speeding down the highway on a motorcycle for a green screen scene. Then Isabella left the office, sighing and hanging her head. Will looked after her with pity. It had been clear for a long time that she had imagined this job very differently.

"Now, Will, now I'm ready. I love the fresh air! It helps me concentrate," Stanford explained, putting on his movie star smile again. Will, for his part, tried not to lose focus as he stared at the mayor standing in front of him, his hair blowing and his torso exposed.

"The attacks in the subway stations are slowly but surely getting completely out of hand, Mr. Stanford," he got to the point. The mayor rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Yes, I remember, you reported this to me before, didn't you?" Stanford replied hesitantly.

"Six times in the last few weeks," Morgan countered with a slightly sour undertone.

"Ah yes, of course," Stanford nodded. "What's the situation again?" Morgan noticed his left eye twitching slightly. It was definitely time for his stomach pills again today.

"Passengers continue to be killed and sometimes eaten in subway stations. Eyewitnesses say a large group of naked humanoids with coal-black skin are responsible. They are said to be about 1.40 meters tall, very fast, and mostly crawling on all fours. They hunt the people down there in packs and disappear as quickly as they appear. People and the press just call them the *Crawlers* now," Will explained again what he had already sent to his superior in the aforementioned six written reports.

"Oh, yes, yes, the Crawlers, yes...," Stanford replied. "And, uh... how...?"

"We don't have enough police to protect all the subway stations. Subway employees and maintenance workers are now being attacked right in the shafts. There have already been several deaths among the staff. The permanent hiring of private security as additional help will not solve the problem. We can't wait any longer," Morgan grunted.

"What do you suggest?" the mayor asked, eyes wide open. At least the magnitude of the problem seemed to dawn on him now. He might not be the brightest, but at least he listened to his experienced specialists in many important decisions. Probably also for lack of ideas of his own.

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"These crawlers probably behave like swarms and we don't know where they come from. We need to find their origin, then maybe we can eradicate them," Morgan said, putting his hands in his coat pockets. It still bothered him to have to speak against the constant hum of the fan.

"How are you going to do that?" Stanford asked back.

"I've got a lot of good people in Homicide, but we're completely swamped with these incidents now that a lot of officers are tied up in the subway system. But above ground, things are going crazy. I suggest we hire someone to search underground for the source of the crawlers, probably risking their lives, instead of continuing to waste our own forces," Morgan elaborated.

"Who do you have in mind?" Stanford asked again, perking up at the idea.

"There is a relatively new small agency downtown. They advertise in the Yellow Pages that they're available for dangerous jobs. TRAP is the name," Morgan explained succinctly.

"Never heard of them," the mayor replied.

"They probably do more shady stuff," Morgan shrugged. "But in this case, it doesn't matter, these runners can do some work for a good cause. However, I will have to offer them either a large sum of money or something of value. Something of real value, otherwise mercenaries will desert at the first sign of real danger." Stanford considered. Handing over what could be a six-figure sum of taxpayers' money to a group of runners was definitely a big risk. But he quickly came up with a way to save money.

"Lewis' mansion on North Beach recently fell to the city, how about the property as a reward for a successful job?" he announced with a grin. It was true, the former Minister of Infrastructure had died of old age, and since he had no heirs, his property had reverted to the city. For a group of small, insignificant private agents, this was an opportunity that would not come around a second time in their lives. Will Morgan smiled now. It was one of those rare moments when his superior had actually said something useful. Maybe he had been wrong about some things after all?

"Agreed! I'll offer the villa to the agency if they can get the crawlers off our backs," the homicide chief nodded.

"Excellent!" exclaimed Stanford. Then he pressed the intercom button on his desk again. "Isabella, have the oil boys come in, the fan air is already making my skin as dry as the desert!" he warbled into the microphone again in a good mood. Morgan raised both eyebrows and tried to understand what he had just heard. After about half a minute, the office door opened again and two young men in white togas with laurel wreaths on their heads entered the room with brisk steps. In their laced sandals they pranced across the floor, their posture agile and full of drive. Each carried a bottle of body lotion. Practiced, they squirted some of the contents into their hands, rubbed it in, and then began meticulously oiling Fabio's muscular torso.

"Um... do we have anything else on the agenda?" the mayor asked Morgan. He just shook his head in confusion, said goodbye and left the city hall. Maybe he should send Isabella a fruit basket soon?

Ralph laughed loudly and bleatingly as Will Morgan finished speaking. The TRAP agents were sitting with the senior officer in the living room, or rather, the agency's headquarters. The man with the monocle over his right eye had just finished describing the job and the promised reward. Ralph was still laughing, while Abigail, Yuri and Harry tried not to look too shocked. Only Yanny continued to smile, seemingly unimpressed, and listened very carefully. "Dude, are you kidding me?", Ralph finally blurted out. "What kind of joke is this? You're ripping us off, aren't you? Nobody's going to give a bunch of us a villa, I know what this shit is worth!" Will Morgen nodded, fumbled in his inside coat pocket, pulled out a document and placed it on the small table in front of him. "Read it for yourself, it's the truth," he said in a calm voice. Yanny, who was sitting next to Will, scanned the document briefly with her eyes and then nodded to Harry, who was now also wearing sunglasses in the apartment. "It's all true," she said quietly. Harry ran his hand thoughtfully through his hair, glancing first at Abigail and Yuri, then at Ralph, who had suddenly fallen silent at Yanny's remark. "We'll do it," he announced tersely, and the head of Homicide smiled with satisfaction. His plan had worked, a first success at least. "We need access to all investigative files, no restrictions," Abigail added, rubbing her hands together in anticipation. They just had to do it, the reward was too good to be true. A villa on North Beach was out of reach for mere mortals. You had to pay several million dollars and have the right connections, both of which were out of reach for them in this lifetime. The villa would catapult them all up the social ladder in one fell swoop.

"Normally, we never give out investigative files directly..." Morgan said in response to Abigail's request. He was uncomfortable with it, but of course the lady was right. Secrecy would only get in the way of quick success now. He still wasn't sure what to make of this group, after all it seemed to be a motley crew. Frankly, he had hoped for something more professional, but the bottom line was that not much could go wrong. At worst, they wouldn't survive the mission and he would have to come up with something new. Only the loss of time would be painful, law-abiding citizens were still in danger. He hesitated for a moment before finishing his sentence. "... but in this case I can make an exception. You will get a complete copy of all the files we have." Abigail nodded in satisfaction as Yuri stood, walked over to Morgan and held out his hand. Morgan stood as well, reaching out to the tall Russian and shaking his hand.

"Then contract is sealed. Prepare cleaning company for big villa," Yuri said dryly.

"When this is all done, I want one of those lawn mowers you can sit on and drive around. Make a note of that!" bleated Ralph, and then went to the bathroom. "I'm getting irritable bowel syndrome from all this excitement!" Will Morgan looked after the old punk with a shocked face. Had it really been a good idea to come to this agency?