“Drop something, detective?”
Saxon’s head didn’t move, but his eyes trailed up from his newspaper toward the source of the noise. What they found was an overly cheery face, grinning ear to ear, attached to a body that had one hand resting on his desk, and the other spinning his plaque.
“My bad, lieutenant,” Saxon said, quickly snatching his plaque back from the hands of his former partner. Ever since his promotion, Herman took every opportunity to remind Saxon of the difference in their ranks--much to Saxon’s indifference.
“No problem,” Herman quipped back. “Have something for you. Mind if I borrow your computer?”
“Sure, just don’t go through the browser history,” Saxon replied. “And don’t you mean something for us?”
“Nope,” Herman stated matter-of-factly. “But we’ll get to that,” Herman pointed toward the screen, “for now take a look at this.”
Appearing on the screen was black and white traffic camera footage of an empty intersection.
“This is dated yesterday night Herman,” Saxon complained. “You sure this is the work of an avatar?”
“Just keep watching,” Herman retorted.
It wasn’t long after hitting play that a car rolled up to the intersection. Before it even came to a stop the driver began honking fervently.
“What are they honking at?” Saxon asked, having put down his newspaper, his eyes now glued to the screen.
“Just keep watching,” Herman repeated.
Suddenly, from out of frame a humanoid figure came falling upon the hood of the car. As its feet embedded themselves into the metal the driver opened their door, fleeing in fear. Quickly the car’s engine began smoking. Eventually, it detonated, launching a metal shard into the camera, ending the video.
Reaching into his coat pocket Herman pulled out a handful of photographs. “This is what the aftermath looks like,” he said, pushing the photos of the wreckage toward Saxon.
“Driver hurt?” Saxon asked.
“Just cuts from the broken window glass, created when our culprit landed on his vehicle,” Herman answered. “Questioned the driver this morning. According to him, the assailant was unharmed after their crash landing, and didn’t appear hostile toward him nor harmed in any way.”
Saxon cocked his head in confusion. “So the dude perches on top of a traffic light, leaps from it in the dead of night, lands on the hood of a car, walks off an explosion, and then just leaves?”
Herman just shrugged. “Apparently.”
Depending on the mythos a person can be driven to strange action. However, Saxon still found this unnatural, even with everything he’s seen--which was damn near everything in this city.
He’d love to ask if Alex could determine the culprit’s mythos beforehand, but they were backlogged with more important things. That meant Saxon would be going in blind--a situation he arguably shouldn’t be as accustomed to as he was.
Just before Saxon could head out Herman stopped him. “Now where do you think you’re getting off to all on your lonesome?”
Saxon came to halt, pivoting his head and raising an eyebrow. “What’s this? Being stuck behind a desk for two months give you the urge to come back into the field? Well maybe if you say please …”
“Oh, I’m not coming,” Herman interjected. He walked past Saxon to the door. Cracking it open revealed a woman leaning against the precinct’s exterior. “She is,” Herman said, his thumb pointed in her direction. “Meet the newest member of the FMPD, Detective Lya.”
“We hired somebody named Liar to work for the police,” Saxon joked, feigning disbelief.
“It’s Lee-uh, not Lie-uh. It’s my understanding that you are Detective Saxon,” she said, her hand outstretched.
Saxon, accepting her offer, shook Lya’s hand. “Indeed I am.”
“They told stories about you and Lieutenant Herman at the academy,” Lya remarked.
“Is that so?” Saxon said. “Hopefully only good things.”
“Mostly, I would know seeing as I graduated …” but before Lya could finish trying to gain some respect, Saxon intervened.
“Top of your class,” Saxon said, bobbing his head with each word. “You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t. So congratulations, you met expectations.”
Herman, stepping between the two, interjected. “Everybody starts somewhere Saxon, so play nice. Charon knows the location, and he’s waiting to take you two there.”
“Charon?” Lya asked.
Saxon cocked his head. “That’s right, you haven’t met him. Head outside, I’ll show you where he’s at. Just gotta clear something up with Herman real quick.”
Lya reluctantly took a step outside, shutting the door on her way out.
“You didn’t tell her about Charon?” Saxon asked Herman, shock scrawled across his face.
“Well if I stick you with a new recruit, a new case, and let you have no fun, then what kind of lieutenant would I be?” Herman said with a smirk.
Like a mirror, reflecting Herman’s face, Saxon smirked as well. “Thank you, lieutenant.”
“My pleasure. Now get to work detective,” Herman asserted, waving his hand toward the door.
Saxon stepped out into the morning streets of Fable City. “Well then,” he said, turning to Lya. “Let us not keep Charon waiting.”
As they began their walk Saxon caught Lya up on the case. The only information he had was the brief rundown Herman had given him this morning, but it was enough to start bouncing theories off each other. Their conversation was only halted once Saxon began to descend down a subway entrance marked with yellow tape labeling it out of service.
“What are you doing?” Lya asked.
“Going to our ride,” Saxon replied. “You coming?”
Against her better judgment, Lya followed Saxon down into the abandoned subway station. Ruddy yellow lights illuminated the long-forgotten station. From what Lya could remember from her trips around Fable, although this place was abandoned, trains probably still ran through it.
“Never knew the FMPD had a personal train. Seems a bit excessive for just the two of us.” Lya commented.
“Who said Charon drove a train?” Saxon asked, hoping over the broken turnstile.
“Then what does he drive?” Lya responded, following just behind.
“That,” Saxon answered, as both their heads turned toward the tunnel on their left.
An ominous purple light began driving out the darkness in the tunnel as it crept closer to the station. A jet-black limousine, with tinted windows, and wheels affixed to the tracks that emitted purple flames in place of sparks came to a screeching halt in front of the two detectives.
“This is still excessive, but it’s also really cool,” Lya exclaimed, her reason losing out against her childlike wonder.
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“Believe me, it stays cool,” Saxon said in affirmation. He popped open the passenger side door, and the two made their way within the vehicle’s interior, which was just as devoid of color as the exterior. Though what it lacked in color, it made up for with an abundance of snacks and drinks.
“Want anything?” Saxon asked, rummaging through the snacks for chocolate.
“They got candy?” Lya responded.
Saxon pulled out of the snack compartment and tossed a bag of gummy worms in Lya’s lap. “Hit it, Charon,” Saxon said, laying down in his seat, opposite Lya.
“Alright Lya, run me through what you think is going on with this case.” Saxon requested.
Lya, all too happy to be given a chance to prove herself useful, obliged. “Well, there are a number of possibilities. First of all, the culprit may have been consumed by their mythos. Seeing as how their mythos grants them strength, perhaps it’s some monster that craves destruction, hence why they didn’t go after the driver.
Now alternatively, their mythos could have been awakened recently. People are most susceptible to influence when it's new, and they may have just been wanting to test-drive their powers.
It’s also important to consider that this could be somebody under the influence of mental manipulation, from another person abusing the abilities granted to them by their mythos.”
“What makes you so sure that this is somebody under some kind of external influence?” Saxon inquired.
“Because it’s the only explanation for such abnormal behavior,” Lya said, confused as to how Saxon hadn’t come to the same conclusion.
“Piece of advice, you’re focusing on the wrong things,” Saxon said, “The fewer puzzle pieces you have, the more things are gonna fit. We’re detectives, we find everything there is to find; only then do we come to a conclusion.”
“What’s your mythos?” Saxon asked, in part to make his point, in part to figure out what Lya was capable of.
“Hermes,” she responded, “it gives me super speed.”
“See Hermes is a messenger god, yet here you are delivering justice, not newspapers,” Saxon remarked. “My point is that the influence of a mythos is often dwarfed by the influence of the individual that embodies them. If you attribute every strange case, which is practically all of them, to the influence of a mythos just because you work at the Fable Mythos Police Department, then you aren’t gonna last long.”
Lya slumped in her seat, allowing Saxon’s advice to settle in. However, her thoughts were all expelled when the lights of a train came barreling toward their vehicle.
She somehow hadn’t realized that, given the side of the tracks they were on, they were moving opposite that of public transit. She curled up into a brawl, and braced for impact, but nothing happened. Her eyes opened to find Saxon still laying down, and entirely unphased.
“What was that?” Lya asked, demanding an immediate answer.
“Welp, we’re dead,” Saxon said with a shrug, barely holding his laughter.
“What do you mean?” Lya asked, her voice shakier than before.
“We were dead the moment we stepped in the car,” Saxon stated.
Saxon grew guilty seeing Lya’s reaction; her body was shivering, her voice unstable, and her mind racing to comprehend what was happening. He thought he’d feel better about it remembering the roaring laughter his seniors had when they put him through this. Supposedly the tradition was meant to be enjoyable, but Saxon quickly grew disgusted at what he had done.
“Calm down, calm down,” Saxon said, shooting up from his seat. “Our driver, we call him Charon because he has the mythos of Charon, the ferryman of the dead. It lets him, and his passengers traverse between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Right now we are in the land of the dead, which allows us to pass through objects in the land of the living. So we aren’t dead okay? Sorry, it’s a messed up tradition, rite of passage sort of thing.”
“Okay,” Lya said, having fully dissociated.
The remainder of the ride was quiet and awkward. Once they finally arrived at their destination, Charon came to a stop, and the door swung open for the pair to exit. Finding their way to the surface, now back in the land of the living, the two made out for the crime scene.
“You got your bearings back?” Saxon asked, checking in with Lya.
“Still processing, but I think I’m alright,” Lya responded, unsure how alright she really was.
The intersection where the event occurred last night had been entirely cut off. Disturbing the flow of traffic in Fable generated a lot of public complaints, so Saxon wanted to hurry this along.
Approaching one of the officers at the scene, Saxon pulled out his badge “Hello there officer, I’m Detective Saxon, this is my partner Detective Lya, we are here to examine the crime scene.”
Arriving at the scene of the crime, a routine inspection revealed nothing that wasn’t initially obvious from a single glance. No effort to cover up anything, and all possible fingerprints or DNA residue was eradicated by the explosion.
“Found something,” Lya shouted from one of the nearby rooftops, having run up there using her mythos. She came dashing back down toward Saxon carrying a black blazer in her hands.
“Let me see,” Saxon said, coughing and waving to push away all the dust Lya had just kicked up in his face.
“Doesn’t seem like there’s anything in here,” Saxon said, digging through each of the pockets.
“Except for this,” Lya said, holding a small card. “Got bored on the way over. Decided to look through it myself.”
“Well played,” Saxon said, relieved to see Lya in a good mood after the Charon incident. “What’s it say?”
“Business card,” Lya responded. “Name is Desmond Riley. Says here he works for Midas Millionaire Incorporated. Been an accountant there for five years.”
“Midas is well known for hiring avatars, and their headquarters are just downtown. Could be worth checking out,” Saxon concluded.
“Good idea,” Lya said, her voice slightly shaken. She knew downtown was quite a ways from her, and that would mean another trip with Charon.
Saxon, picking up on this, made a suggestion.“How about we walk, and talk on the way?”
“Let’s go,” Lya exclaimed, the tension leaving her body.
In downtown Fable, residents found their field of vision choked by bright electronic displays and massive corporate buildings. Midas Millionaire Incorporated’s headquarters wasn’t hard to find--and that was by design. Its office was near the center square, and even downtown, it managed to tower over its neighboring buildings.
Saxon quickly made his way to the woman at the front desk. “Hello there, I’m Detective Saxon from the FMPD. Does Desmond Riley work here? I have reason to suspect he’s been involved in criminal activity.”
Saxon had been here before a handful of times. He knew Midas employees were always taught to fully cooperate with the FMPD.
“Yes, he works on floor 11, office 9,” the lady said, scouring through her computer. “Wow, he's been working here for five years. That’s odd.”
“Why’s that?” Saxon inquired.
“I’ve been here two years and never seen him before,” the lady answered. “I think I vaguely remember seeing him, but that was only a few days ago.”
Another piece of the puzzle, Saxon thought to himself. He gathered up Lya, and they navigated their way toward the elevator, before ascending to floor 11.
“Run a quick perimeter, and peek in some of the windows,” Saxon asked, looking at Lya and holding up the image from the traffic camera footage. “I want to see if he’s in his office.”
In a blur of orange Lya, was gone and back before Saxon could blink. “Someone is in there, and they match the body type from the camera footage.”
With a quick nod, Saxon began to make his way over to the office, with Lya following shortly behind.
“Hey there,” Saxon said, knocking on the golden number 9 embedded in the door. With no response, Lya stepped forward and tried the handle. It was unlocked, so she stepped in. At the desk was a man with an unnaturally large frame, who quickly perked up at the sight of someone entering his office.
“Hello, I’m Detective Lya and this is Detective Saxon. We’re from the FMPD and we’d like to … ” yet before Lya could finish Desmond’s hands gripped his table. Around all his visible skin, hair began growing at an accelerated rate, and his muscle mass increased substantially, till he looked more like a gorilla than a man.
His fingers cracked the wood of the table, and as he stood from his chair, he heaved his desk at Lya. Once again calling upon her mythos, she rushed forward and slid underneath the desk. As she screeched across the ground, her legs stretched out to try and slide tackle Desmond to the ground. Unfortunately, he leaped toward the window, shattering it, and causing her to make a direct impact with the wall and let out a wail of pain.
Saxon, hearing the window shatter, peered around the corner to see Desmond leaping down the hallway. Rushing into the room upon hearing Lya, he knelt down next to her.
“Can you run?” Saxon asked, pulling Lya to her feet.
“Not anymore,” Lya said, glancing at her now bloodied foot.
“Well you’ve been doing a lot for your first day,” Saxon said. “That super speed sure is something. Good thing I got an eyeful of it. Let me give it a try.”
Having gotten Lya to her feet, Saxon turned toward the door. A streak of neon blue--an inversion of Lya’s heavy orange--blitzed out the office, sending the fallen papers into the air. Saxon wasn’t used to super speed, but luckily for him, Desmond hadn’t turned any corners, so it was just a straight shot.
For a split second neon blue flooded Desmond’s eyes. He raised his fists toward Saxon, who now stood before him. His knees bent to leap but were unable to rise as from Saxon’s head several magenta snakes shot out. The sight of them instantly paralyzed Desmond, allowing Saxon to wrestle him to the ground without any resistance.
“Sorry friend, you’re under arrest,” Saxon said, placing reinforced cuffs on Desmond, designed to handle powerful avatars.
Lya, who had watched this whole event unfold, managed to hobble her way down the hallway toward Saxon.
“As far as I know, there is no mythos with super speed, and paralyzing hair snakes, so what was that?” Lya asked.
Saxon considered, for a moment, keeping it secret. After all, his mythos could easily be rendered powerless with proper understanding. But, for better or worse this was his partner, and if anyone needed to know, it was her.
“It’s not as special as you think,” Saxon said, failing to realize that he would come to regret this decision. “My mythos is the Copycat.”