I did not witness this myself for some time, but had heard it described from enough people who had seen it to be able to visualize the situation, or at least most of it.
The scene was a busy street immediately off of a main thoroughfare. People were going about their business normally when a slight glow appeared in an alley - an alley always located conveniently out of the range of any working surveillance cameras on the street.
When the glow subsided, a figure was visible - this figure appeared to be an extremely beautiful, almost androgynous man - except that he had skin that appeared to be made of living gold, soft blue eyes with no visible pupils, long flowing hair that fell below his shoulders, and broad golden wings sprouting from his back. He wore a backless white robe, and spoke in a voice described as “musical and relaxing,” speaking of peace and love, speech peppered with what he claimed were Bible quotes (some were, some were fabrications, most were close but inaccurate, at least when later compared to the three translations I managed to check).
Somehow, during his … more of a presentation than a sermon, really, most of those who stopped to listen had their wallets and other small valuables stolen, and few realized it until much later.
Why did a homicide cop get involved in this, you ask? Exhibit A: Mary Louise Warner, aged eighty seven, who suffered a fatal heart attack at the third sighting of the golden “angel” that called itself Solarr - and yes, it did trill or roll the “r” at the end whenever it gave its name, so that it was doubled.
My partner, Detective Sergeant (promoted only a week earlier) Dina Genovelli and I had been called into the Medical Examiner’s office.
Doctor Kendra Latimer sat across from us. “Even though this looks like a textbook cardiac arrest, I believe it was either accidental or intentional manslaughter,” she said as she slid a file across the desk. “And the perp appears to be a freaking angel.”
“A what?” My partner exclaimed
“Yeah - have you read the witness accounts? Over six feet tall, golden skin that shines with an inner radiance, large golden wings - Wings! - long golden hair and he always dresses in white or red backless robes with sandals on his feet. After seeing how you two and that weird blue guy took out that murderous giant about two months ago, I asked the chief to send you down here to look into our ‘killer angel’.”
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
I spoke up at this point: “do we have a map of sightings of this … being?”
“Vice does. They were treating it like a scam artist until this happened,” the Doctor replied.
I glanced over at Dina: “If I am not overstepping?” She waved for me to go on, “then I believe our investigation needs to start there. Thank you for bringing us in on this, Doctor Latimer.
“Just find this guy, and if it was intentional, bring him down. If not, do what you can to help keep it from happening again,” came the reply.
After a few calls, we discovered that Detective Aram Barakagian was leading Vice’s investigation, and headed over to his office. Aram was a brown haired man in his early thirties; he had a normally Stony face that showed little emotion, and large, sad-looking brown eyes. His office had a list of all the reported sightings of this angelic being - including the little tidbit about what it called itself, and we were beginning to see the start of a pattern, as it seemed to be appearing within a limited radius. Near the heart of that radius was an address that felt important, somehow, but I was drawing a blank. I mentioned this to my partner and the Vice detective, and Dina said “that would be either the two, three or four hundred blocks of Hawthorne, right?”
Examining the map I had to agree. She did a quick search of incident reports and let out a low whistle
“Rookie, you may be on to something - look at this.”
I moved over to her side and looked at the computer screen: ‘Explosion rocks Cyberdyne Technologies Lab.”
According to the report, one week before the first sighting of this Solarr, there had been a explosion in one of their medical research labs. No serious injuries were reported, but close to a million dollars worth of equipment and some “tissue samples of a classified nature” were reported as destroyed..
Dina skimmed the article, and then turned to Barakagian: “Did you guys talk to either of the people named in the article - the researcher in charge of that lab, or the company CEO?”
“Uh, no. We thought the connection was a little too tenuous,” he admitted.
Dina sighed. “Okay. Rookie, you call their offices and see if we can get a meeting with this, ah, is his name really Doctor Adam Tinker? A bit on the nose…. Anyway, you look into that and I’ll see if I can find a way to connect with the guy who ran that particular lab, Doctor David Mendel.”