Eliza overdosing on cocaine was obviously suspicious to me. Not because it was impossible. While I did like her, she wasn’t necessarily incapable of holding secrets from me. I knew about her wife and child, about some of her experiences in private investigation, and a little about her life, but we weren’t that close otherwise. For all I knew, she really did have an addiction that she had managed to keep hidden. Sad, but possible.

Rather, it was the timing. For her to call me so agitated, worried about getting followed, then later show up just happening to have died of an overdose despite having no history for such a thing when I’d looked into her, no arrests for possession or anything. Which was not impossible, but still extremely suspect.

I was thinking about that while sitting in first class on the way to Chicago, developing a file for my investigation. I wasn’t sitting in first class just to be fancy. It offered me seclusion, the guarantee of at least some form of good treatment in the form of customer service being naturally better towards those paying more, and, most importantly, leg room. Worth it’s weight in gold when you’re eight feet tall.

I ignored the attendants as they based, trying not to be rude, but mostly focusing on using my laptop to work. I had several tabs open, as well as a document and a notepad on my lap. I worked quickly, compiling as much as I could.

No one had gotten back to me on my hacking offer yet, so I was working off what I could get from a Google search spree. Which was not much.

First, the information about Eliza Daniels was sparse. The death of a private investigator was not something that lit the world on fire, sad as it was. Still, I’d learned some valuable information. She’d been found in her home by her wife, lying on their floor in the bedroom, cocaine spilled across the floor. I brought up a photo.

Eliza had spoken a few times about the other Mrs. Daniels. Jen Daniels, a young white woman with hair dyed purple and glasses was smiling in the photo I’d found, arm in arm with her wife. Their child, a young man named Sammy, was cute, with brown eyes and skin, his smile bright as he hugged Eliza.

My eyes searched Eliza’s face. She was a little overweight, with short pixie cut hair, and a very kind smile, hugging her son tightly to her. She seemed happy. But of course, this was just a photograph.

It occurred to me that I was actually very selfish. In the end, the reason I was flying to Chicago was my own burning questions. I cared for Eliza, but not more than one would for any casual acquaintance. In the end, there was a more personal reason I was going, and Eliza was a small concern compared to that. But then, that was the problem with being a monster. It's hard to see beyond your own needs.

I made a promise, looking at that photo, that whatever my own selfish needs, I would make sure to discover why Eliza had died, if anyone was behind it. And if someone was, I would kill them.

With that promise, I saved the photo to the cloud so I could look at it on my cell phone as well, then switched to my tabs on Monarch.

Nothing. They were a simple, small company that had started in Germany, then moved their facilities to Chicago. A few lawsuits, government contracts that were slightly suspect, some accusations of shady business dealings, even a conversation with one of their former employees who mentioned they were unkind to those who worked for them, but nothing insanely over the top. I even checked on the CEO, and she seemed to be rather normal.

Except for the fact that Eliza was dead, after investigating the company, and after expressing her worries to me. I wasn't blind to the idea of coincidence of course, and correlation isn't always causation. But it was enough to start looking for anyone.

Then there was the burning question. What had she found? Over the centuries, I'd seen some strange things. Fought a few of them even. Not a lot of those things were still around. This age of science and technology had force a lot into hiding. There was a reason why I didn't have a facebook account and kept myself secret to all but a select few, though my love of pizza had led me to reveal myself to Eddie.

But Eliza had found something in Monarch. Was it anything close to what I hoped/feared I would find? Or just a simple corporate secret?

All of my speculation began to circle in on itself, the same questions rolling around and around in my mind until I was beginning to feel like I was going insane. I took a deep breath before gesturing to one of the attendants. He came over in his blue vest and gave me a very forced smile, trying not to look at me while also looking very hard.

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“How can I help you?” he asked politely.

“May I have some coffee?” I asked him in turn. “I understand it's a bit early, but I could use the caffiene.”

“It's no problem,” he said, making sure to smile a bit wider. “I'll be right back.”

As he left, I looked out my window. Thinking, I reached out with my mind. The lightning in me stirred, but did not erupt, only heightening my awareness of the power around me. I touched my mind to the metal around me, the struts and walls, pressing gently to the wings. Then further out, to the sunlit clouds outside my window, filled with water vapor. I didn't unleash anything, simply felt it as we flew on our way to Chicago. Even then, a single bolt of white light erupted in the far distance, and I pulled back myself.

In Chicago, I got off the plane and rented a car, a simple four door sedan with plenty of room for me. It was the work of a few minutes to figure out the way to my destination, then driving on my way

Chicago is one of a few cities that always fascinated me. America has a few cities like that in fact, cities that breath so deeply with history that it can be felt in every corner. New York, San Francisco, they had that spirit of the old mixing with the new. It wasn't as strong as in cities across the sea, such as London or Hong Kong, but it was still obvious if you knew what to look for. The older buildings made of brick next to new structures of metal and glass, the signs marking historic moments, the beat up old neighborhoods. Chicago had a life to it that anyone could sense. It is no mistake that such cities often tend to be port towns. All the good and bad that came with that made the city fascinating to me.

I drove through the city and headed to the suburbs. Soon I stopped in front of a house I'd only heard about. It didn't take long to find parking, and I stood before it. The house was nice, if small, with a front lawn, porch, and some flowers in small boxes by the windows. I walked up to the door, hiding my nervousness as best I could, and knocked on the door to the house.

No one answered it for a long while. I rang the doorbell, getting no answer.

Frowning, I looked down at the door. It had two locks, one on the knob and the other a deadbolt. Nothing for any lockpick user with any experience to be able to open. I wasn’t thinking of doing so myself, but I could see someone may have. Some small scratches at the edges of the locks could have been cause by those in the house, but the fact the scratches I saw were brand new with no other evidence, I came to the theory that someone had snuck in that way. Straight through the front door. Interesting.

I walked over to the sidewalk and waited. Soon, a car drove over and parked before a woman and child came out. I slipped my sunglasses on to hide my odd eyes before walking up to them. As the woman was distracted with trying to get something out of it, the child noticed me, staring up at me while I walked over. I stopped a safe distance away from the pair.

“Mrs. Daniels? May I speak with you?” I asked.

She looked up, then let out a small scream of surprise. She stared at me in horror, then slowly took a deep breath. “I-I’m so sorry, I just-”

“It’s all right,” I said, smiling. “I’m used to it.”

She winced. “Oh, god I’m so sorry, I just… I’ve had a bad day,” the look on her face… It was a familiar one. The look of someone who has suddenly lost everything. I’d seen it on far too many faces. “Who, um, who are you?”

“Adam Sinraj,” I said. “I was a client of Eliza’s.”

Jen seemed to sink farther. “Oh. I see.”

I sighed. “I promise, I’m not here to, to ask for money back, or to attack you for some perceived slight. I considered Eliza a friend. I just want to know what happened to her.”

Jen stared at me while her son looked between us. After a while, she reached into the car and pulled out a folder before gesturing to the house. “Stay out here. I’m going to get something.”

------

I waited for around twenty minutes. Jen soon came out of the house holding a folder. She passed it to me. I didn’t comment on the track marks on her face from recent crying, only taking the file.

“What is this?” I opened the file.

“It’s everything she had on you,” she answered, crossing her arms and watching me flip through the pages. “Adam Sinraj. She… she was really interested in you. It’s why she worked so hard on that case you gave her.”

“I see,” I said simply, opening a few pages. No photos of me, but plenty of documents. Not impossible, considering my age. Even a normal person gained dozens of papers over a few years. Eliza had managed to find a few surprises however. Things that, taken together, revealed more about me than I felt comfortable, from my deviantart account, a novel I’d written under another name… there was far too much information.

I put the folder away. “Mrs. Daniels… Eliza, the case she was working on for me-”

“The file is gone,” Jen scowled at me. “I don’t know what was on it, but all her research was gone after…” She hesitated, the devastation on her face replacing the scowl.

“...Thank you, for this,” I said at last. There was more I wanted to do, to possibly see inside the home. But I could tell that I was not helping. Jen wished to grieve. And I was just a monstrous reminder of her wife’s death.

I walked away, frowning.

The file on Monarch was gone. That was enough proof, when added with the coincidence of Eliza’s death and the scratches on the lock, for me to start an investigation.

Monarch was hiding something. So it was time for me to start digging.