Kyle jumped out of the police cruiser and looked at the apartment building before him. Walking quickly he made his way toward the door.

“What do ya think happened?” John asked lazily as he climbed out of the car on the other side and hurried after him.

Kyle sighed as he entered the building. “I don’t know John. It’s been like, a month since the car accident, right?” He asked for confirmation as he pushed the button to call the elevator.

“Yeah, almost, actually…” John pulled up his calendar using his V-screen. “It's been exactly thirty-one days since then. One month exactly. That’s fucking suspicious.”

The elevator opened and both stepped on.

“I know. What info do we have?” He asked, and John checked his V-screen again.

“Looks like… not much. We know that there was an incident, that it involved Las-guns, probably an SBID as well, and blood was found at the scene. Beyond that, forensic is still picking up clues. Also, the feds have been poking their noses in.”

Kyle paused for a moment before scowling. “Shit.”

John nodded then grinned. “Las-guns, Sbid’s, and feds. Oh my,” he cracked, making a smile flitter across Kyle’s face.

Taking a deep breath, Kyle started running through everything aloud. “Ok, Las-guns and SBID’s point to this being some sort of special forces operation, most likely black. The fact that the feds are already snooping around means that they’re probably involved somehow.

“As for Ms. Miller… well, I just don’t know. Everything pointed to that car incident being a fluke… but with this”

“Maybe it wasn’t,” John finished.

“Exactly,” Kyle confirmed as the elevator opened and they stepped off. “You said there was blood at the scene, do we have anything from that?”

“That’s… weird.” John said, looking at his V-screen. “The genetic samples we got were a complete mess. Based on what we have it’s like somebody took a blender to the whole genome.”

“Meaning?” Kyle asked as they rounded another hallway, getting closer to their destination.

“Meaning that genetic identification is impossible. The individual strands of DNA have just… turned into sludge.” John said in confusion.

“Fuck. Alright, what about cameras?”

“Nothing on that end either. Whatever archives they had were deleted. We have some techies seeing if they can scrounge anything up, but it’s not looking good.”

“Fucking shit.” Kyle cursed as they finally rounded the last corner and got a look on the scene.

At the end of the hallway, there were two policemen standing behind a holographic emitter. It was displaying the classic yellow police tape, with the words slowly scrolling from wall to wall. Past them was a busted down door that led deeper into the crime scene.

Stepping up to the tape, Kyle nodded to the two officers. “Markus, Tom, what’s the situation?”

“Damn feds have shown up,” Markus answered with a sour expression. “Haven’t stopped us from investigating yet, but I don’t like this.”

“You and me both,” Kyle muttered as he stepped past the two, john following behind. As he entered the apartment, he saw the damage was much worse than he realized.

The kitchen was completely trashed. The entire length of the wall behind the counter was scorched. What was probably once a small table was lying in splinters on the floor, and there were two significant blood puddles on the tiles.

Moving over to the living room, the place was much more intact. Funiture was somewhat out of place, probably shifted in a scuffle, but there was a very large pool of blood up against one of the walls, slowly seeping into the carpet.

And in the middle of the room were two men and a woman dressed in black suits, observing the forensic scientists as they studied the room.

“I think we found the feds…” John whispered.

Nodding, Kyle made his way over to the group who had noticed there appearance.

“Yes?” the woman asked as they got closer, a pleasant smile on her face.

“I’m Detective Brown and this is Detective Markle,” he introduced himself and his partner. “We’ve been assigned this case and we wanted to know if you had any information that you could share with us,” he stated plainly.

The woman appeared momentarily thrown off by his attitude before she smiled again, this time was far more genuine. “Nice to meet you, Detective Brown. I’m Special Agent Reily, this is my partner Special Agent Malcolm, and this is Retrocog Dillian,” she said, motioning to her partners.

Both men nodded in greeting but allowed Reily to continue speaking for them.

“Me and Malcolm work for the FBI, while Dillian over here works for the DPD.”

“I… see,” Kyle said and nodded.

“Huh? See what?” John asked, confused. “Whats the DPD and a Retrocog?”

“The DPD, or Department of Paranormal Defense, is the agency currently responsible for supers. Containing, finding, policing, managing, everything really. For right now, at least. There has been talk of splitting up the DPD into separate organizations, but that hasn’t really taken off,” Dillian explained.

“Retrocog’s are supers employed by the DPD that have the powers to look back in time.”

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Kyle hummed. “I’d heard about the DPD on of the news-streams, but not that they were employing supers.”

Dillian gave an apologetic smile. “Yeah. It’s not top-secret or anything, but the government isn’t really keen on advertising it. What with the east coast in an uproar about the Molt’s Massacre.”

Kyle nodded, understanding their position.

Even over here on the west coast things were tense. There was a growing resentment in the police force and civil services against supers. It made sense. Supers were dangerous and most police that ended up against one would wind up severely injured.

Or dead.

The goodwill that had been made by Miracle Man was fading fast.

“So does that mean that you’re seeing the past right now?” John asked, pulling Kyle out of his thoughts.

“Not really,” Dillian said sadly. “I need something with a lot of emotions attached to it for my powers to work properly. Otherwise I only really get flashes.”

“I’m surprised by your willingness to work with us, Detective Brown. Normally the police are… reluctant,” Reily said, derailing the conversation.

“Well, I don’t really believe in the whole ‘jurisdiction friction’ thing. The way I see it, we’re both working towards the same outcome: taking down the bad guys. If I can help you, or if you can help me, then I see no reason to act hostile towards you,” Kyle replied with a shrug.

“True. But you didn’t even flinch when Dillian mentioned he was a super. Why is that?” She asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“I don’t see a reason to care. Others may hate supers, but I don’t. There are good and bad supers, just like there are good and bad normal people. Judging the whole for the crimes of the few is something I’ve never been fond of.”

“Interesting... I’m sorry for prying Detective but people with good heads on their shoulders are hard to come by these days,” Reily apologized.

“Not at all. I understand your sentiments. Finding someone with a level head is indeed a difficult task, but, Special Agent, you still haven’t answered my question. Do you have any information you can share with us?”

“Ah.” A conflicted expression came over Reily’s face. “I don’t believe…” she shot a look at her still silent partner, Malcolm, who shrugged. “I need to check something. Please hold on for a moment.” She said before hurrying out of the apartment.

“That was... strange,” John commented.

“Yes, it was.” Kyle agreed.

The group stood in silence for a few moments, the men eyeing each other awkwardly. Eventually, that silence was broken when one of the forensic scientists called them over.

“Detective? Special Agents? You might want to take a look at this.”

The whole group looked toward the room, looked back at each other, and moved as one to the door.

“Jesus Christ!” John shouted, summing up their reaction pretty well.

They all stared incredulously at the room lined wall to wall with comic books.

Paper comic books.

Old paper comic books.

There was a bed in the corner as well as a nightstand, but those seemed to be there almost like afterthoughts. Tacked on to make the place habitable.

“My lord… the emotions in this room…” Dillian said as if he were in a daze.

“What do you mean?” Kyle asked, getting over his shock and turning to the retrocog.

Walking along the bookshelves, Dillian held his hand in front of them, looking like he wanted to touch them, but didn’t dare too. “Every single one of these books has at least one emotion behind it. Most have more than one.”

“And that’s strange because…” John prompted.

“Do you know how hard it is to imbue something with an emotion? You would have to spend years with an object or have a traumatic moment that pertained to it for something to be imbued, and that’s only for the smallest amount. These books are packed with them. It’s like comparing a drop of water to a tsunami.” Dillian explained, sounding slightly fearful.

“...Can you, ya know…” John waved his arms around in a mystical manner.

“I… could, but I doubt that it would give us any useful information. Most of these books feel... happy, content, entertained, and the like. Most, a few feel… sad…” he trailed off looking at a particularly beat-up comic book. “I need something more like… that!” he exclaimed pointing toward the closet.

Rushing over, he started to sift through the clothes covering the floor. “Ah-ha!” he shouted as he pulled out a box of ammunition. “A feeling of panic. This should be perfect.” He said as he made his way back to the group, still standing by the door.

“I… see,” John said when, in fact, he did not see.

“Alright Detective Brown, I’ve been given clearance too- Oh, holy shit.” Reily started but stopped once she entered the room. “That’s… ah, wow. That’s a lot of comic books,” she stated dumbly.

“Yes, yes it is,” Kyle agreed, turning to her.

Gaining control of herself, agent Reily coughed. “Ahem. Ok, Detective Brown, Detective Merkle, I’ve been given clearance to relay information to the two of you. My superiors believe that we need help from the local police to… complete our objective. They believe that you and your partner will be good liaisons between us and the rest of the police.”

“Why do you need liaisons?” John asked, peeking out from behind Kyle.

“Because we need help from the local forces but certain information that we will share with you will be top secret. We can’t risk information getting out beyond what is necessary, however, I imagine you guys won’t be too happy if we just start bossing you around without telling you why.

“We’ve decided that you two would be the best to help us with lowering the tensions and friction between us,” Reily explained. “Time is of the essence and we can’t waste it with squabbles that will pop up.”

Kyle considered the special agent for a moment. “Why us? You barely know us.”

Reily smiled humorously. “You mean that the FBI wouldn’t know about Kyle Brown and John Merkle, the two officers that reported the possibility of the CI incident and subsequently got promoted to detectives?”

Kyle scowled. “Fat lot of good it did. Fucking corps shut us down before we could do anything.”

“Indeed, they did, however, we were not so easily dissuaded.”

“You mean…” John started but trailed off.

Reily nodded. “Yes, that’s why there have been so few accidents.”

“There have been seventy in the past month!” Kyle accused.

“And there would’ve been hundreds if we had not intervened. And we wouldn’t have intervened if we hadn’t been alerted. There were quite a few that wanted to award you metals for what your two did, but the agreements we had with the corps said that we had to keep things under wraps.” Reily explained and shrugged. “But that’s beside the point. Dillian do you have what you need?”

“Yes. This box should have enough emotion for me to get a good image.”

“Alright, well detectives, if you would follow me to a more secure location, we can begin your briefing.”

“Yeah, let’s get out of here. This place is giving me the heebie’s,” John said and followed the agent out.

Looking back, Kyle could understand the sentiment. Just the sheer amount of comic books was disturbing. The place had an aura similar to old libraries, where the bookshelves were just a bit too close together, and just a bit too tall. Dillians words earlier didn’t help to put Kyle at ease either.

“Just what is wrong with you, Ms. Miller?” He asked the empty room before walking out after the rest.

<( o )>

Anna sneezed hard, almost dropping Jamie.

“Gesundheit,” Paradise said from up ahead.

“Thank you.”

‘Geeze, I hope I’m not getting a cold,’ Anna thought as she marched into the night, following the vigilante.