SEPTEMBER 28, 2409 INDUSTRIAL DISTRICT PORT ROYALE, TALEVAN IV The metal door emitted three small popping noises, then collapsed inward with a rough bang on the concrete floor, leaving the silhouette of a large man in a long coat and stiff-brimmed hat visible. "Excuse me," he said, in a moderately toned but rough voice, "But my two friends and I have an appointment with your Q-Boss." He reached into the coat and drew a pair of massive pistols - one automatic and one revolver. The Black Hoods opened fire, but it was like shooting at smoke. Even chipped, a man that size shouldn't be able to move so fast, and the knowledge that this was so rattled the Hoods. And that was -before- he started returning fire himself. The next ten minutes were rather hectic. "HE'S ONE MAN! Can't you idiots do anything to stop him?" The Black Hood turned to look at his detachment's Q-Boss. "He's already carved his way through half our men, and he just keeps coming! Rooftop sniper had a clean headshot and he -got out of the way-! He's not HUMAN!" Q-Boss snorted. "There's no way he can get us in here, anyway. Those doors are too thick for him to shoot through them, no matter what he has with him! Get ahold of yourself! That's why we -have- a bolthole bunker." "Q-Boss? What about a plasma charge?" "What? Where did he get... oh, no." The man with the guns had apparently lifted a plasma demolition charge from one of the Big Fire detachment's own crates. He could be seen on the security monitor affixing it to the door, then pressing a button. That done, he walked away and waited. BOOM. As the smoke cleared, the half-dozen men with Q-Boss recovered from the stunning shockwave, only to be cut down by gunfire. The gunman was just the sort of operative Q-Boss would have expected from the fools in the IPO. His coat was holed, as were the New Avalon Knights t-shirt and jeans he wore underneath, but he seemed to be unharmed himself - as if the damage to his clothes had been caused by bullets which had managed, just barely, to miss his skin. "Q-Boss," the man said, a thin, humorless smile sliding over his face. "I'm gratified you stayed. I'd expect you had a rabbit hole... oh wait, was that what I blocked with that garbage truck?" Q-Boss glared at him - his neck still hurt from the crash of his hoverbike. And after the last debacle right after the Morgan bitch's disappearance, no Can o' Whoop-Ass for him. But there, in his pocket... yeah, it seemed silly, but it might just work... "You may be wondering why I'm doing this," the heavyset gunman went on conversationally. "It's simple, really. I don't like Big Fire. And when I say 'don't like' I mean 'if killing myself would make every Big Fire member in the galaxy fall over and die, I'd toss myself into a blast furnace without a second thought.'" His right hand came up, the huge revolver in it moving to aim at Q-Boss's head. "But since it won't, I keep myself pleased by knowing that every one of you I take out is one less to screw over anyone else. Do you have anything to say before I give your pineal gland an observation window?" "Just this!" Q-boss tapped the button on the device in his pocket, and the spring-loaded knife-blade launched out and hit the man with the guns in the chest. The gunman looked at his chest, where the blade had stopped about halfway in, and sighed. "Where are they getting you from? I swear, when they trained me, we were supposed to look up to a Q-Boss as a man of respect, dedication and thought. How sadly downhill your kind has gone." Q-Boss stared. "Trained? What are you talking about? No one walks away from Big Fire! Allegiance or death!" The man with the guns looked into Q-Boss's eyes. "I know. That's why I blew my handler's head off." The pistol spoke one last time. Walking through the carnage and mess, the man with the guns paused for a moment, rummaged around a workbench by the fire doors, and found an undamaged can of spray paint. He noted the color (black), then began spraying a note onto a wall: BIG FIRE: ALLEGIANCE IS DEATH Tossing the can into a corner, he searched the place quickly, finding a briefcase. A quick moment with a confounder opened it, revealing thick wads of cash. He closed it and took it with him. The gunman moved through the streets of the city to a small, dingy room-for-hire, where he dumped his now-ruined clothes and made a note to buy something new when he got to the next place. Always the next place, he thought. Always the job. He lay down on the uncomfortable bed and looked at the ceiling. Five years since he'd walked away from Big Fire. Five years since he'd walked away from comfort, privilege, and a destiny. Three years since he'd realized he had a conscience. Allegiance or death... and he'd dealt death to leave his allegiance. And he'd keep dealing death to make sure that Big Fire didn't steal the innocence of more children. He started going over the post-mortem of the op. Proper application of terror - he'd learned that talking to a Minbari Anla'shok months before, and while he lacked their purity of purpose, they'd at least parted on good terms. Demonstration of purpose: the spray paint would be the message. Records: the security camera smashed, its crystal erased; no DNA left behind; the clips had been loaded while he was wearing rubber gloves, so the casings were clean. Denial of materiel: The cops would confiscate everything in that warehouse. A lot of illegal weapons kept off the streets. Negatives: missed the sniper. He'd almost gotten his ticket punched, and even his reflexes wouldn't have saved him if he hadn't noticed the glint off the rifle's optics at the last instant. Missed the trick-knife because he was prepared for the powersuit. Fortunately, the dermal weave had stopped it, and the wound was already closing. Used two ECX rounds - only 20 left, he'd need to find a source for more. Forty-four Big Fire Black Hoods dead. One Q-Boss, dead. No sign of paranormal support. All good. This, along with the cops getting hold of the records of Big Fire activity on Talevan IV, would cripple them for a while. Perhaps tonight he could sleep without the screams in his head. And then tomorrow, he'd pack up, try and find someone to sell him more bullets, and then see if he could get a supercargo job on a tramp freighter. It was getting harder nowadays, but it was easier than going legitimately, even with the wadge of cash he'd taken from Big Fire. Besides, that wasn't for his own comfort. He'd use enough for some more ammo, a few nights in a cheap hotel, and the rest... there was blood money to pay, and he already had a place where he could get anonymous credit chits, and a list of addresses to send them to. As he lay thinking about that, the familiar feeling started to grow inside him. He never quite got used to this part. After every mission, after every encounter, after every significant exertion, came the feeling. Early on, it had just been a strange, distracting, but mild sensation. He could ignore it with a concerted enough effort of will. But over time, ignoring it had become harder and harder, until finally it had overwhelmed him. Now he knew enough to find a hole and bolt it down before it started. He turned on his side and curled into a ball as it rippled out from deep in the pit of his chest. It wasn't pain, exactly, but it wasn't particularly pleasant either. It felt a bit like all his nerves had become glass and were resonating with some inaudible tone from the inside of his body outward, just on the edge of shattering. It would grow, and pulse, and crest, and then recede. Each time it got a little more intense, felt a little closer to that theoretical breaking point. Each time, when it subsided, he felt weak and tired - but more vital, more -alive-, than ever. Each time, after a rest, he was stronger, faster, tougher than before. He had his eyes closed whenever it happened, and he always made sure he was alone; so he had no idea that, while the feeling was at its peak, his body was bathed in an eerie greenish light. Presently it passed; he uncoiled and relaxed, falling onto his back again. Hand wrapped around the Jackal's grip, he went to sleep. He'd need the rest more than usual now. The time for this bush-league stuff was over with. It was time to head for the lion's mouth - where the payoff would be higher, but so would the competence of his enemies and the cops. Next stop, New Avalon. I have a message from another time... /* The Who "Who Are You" _The Ultimate Collection_ */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited and Avalon 17 Television present UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT CSI: NEW AVALON Locard's Exchange Benjamin D. Hutchins Geoff Depew with Janice Barlow Chad Collier Chris Pinard (c) 2004 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 2409 INTERNATIONAL POLICE HEADQUARTERS NEW AVALON, ZETA CYGNI The crime lab in the IPO headquarters building in downtown New Avalon was quiet on the day after Thanksgiving. This wasn't entirely unexpected, given that the day-shift investigators and technicians who normally worked there had the day off. The night shift had taken their holiday the night before, so there wasn't any spill-over from their night's work either. The glassed-in offices, labs, and hallways on the tenth floor were silent and empty. Well, almost. Crime Scene Investigator 2 Sara Sidle was at her desk in the communal office shared by all the non-supervisory CSIs on the night shift, poring over a large, heavy book. She had no real reason to be in the office - she wasn't working a hot case or anything. Absolutely nothing of note, criminally speaking, had gone down in New Avalon over the holiday, for which the city's law enforcement personnel were duly grateful. Sara was there anyway, working on one of the secondary cases that always flowed through the lab. The IPO lab most commonly handled cases from law enforcement agencies on the Avalon pseudocontinent (usually the New Avalon Police Department or the Avalon County Sheriff's Department), but as part of the International Police, it could be called on to process evidence or offer advice for any agency connected to the IPO by the Accords. This material wasn't often time-critical, and got worked whenever there was time. She was almost completely absorbed in the book when she heard a quiet noise from somewhere in the lab area. She paused in the middle of turning a page, brow furrowing; one of her primary ears (for Sara was a humanized Salusian) turned toward the sound to listen more carefully. There it was again, a little closer this time. Someone was coming up the hall, opening doors, looking into rooms, then closing them again and moving on. Sara put the book down on her desk and turned in her chair just as a man came into view through the glass wall of the bullpen. She didn't recognize him. He was about her height (not awfully tall for a human male) and had a stocky build, shortish brown hair, a close-trimmed beard, and glasses. He was wearing a beat-up old green Army jacket, jeans, and well-worn boots, and generally didn't look like the sort of person who ought to be prowling around the crime lab on an off day. He went to the door across the way, which led into the Trace Evidence lab, opened it, and put his head in. As he did so, Sara reached behind her back, putting one hand on the grip of her issue sidearm. She wasn't exactly afraid - Sara wasn't afraid of much - but she was certainly a bit concerned as she called through the propped-open bullpen door, "Excuse me. Sir? This is a secure area. You can't be wandering around in here." He paused, then backed out of the Trace lab, crossed to the doorway of the CSI group office, and stopped there, smiling. Now that she got a good look at his face, he seemed familiar, but Sara couldn't place him. Certainly he wasn't anyone she knew. "Oh, hi," he said pleasantly. "I'm not wandering around, I'm looking for someone." Then he looked a bit puzzled, as if something odd had just struck him, and he asked, "What are you doing at work?" Sara blinked at him. That wasn't the answer she'd been expecting, and it wasn't the tone of voice she'd been expecting either. This guy, whoever he was, didn't seem at all abashed that he'd just been caught roaming the halls of the IPO crime lab. "No, OK, wait a second," she said, holding up her free hand. "How did you get in here? Do you have a pass?" "Sure, I - " the man began, but then he glanced at the chest-pocket flap of his jacket, noted there was no pass clipped to it, and frowned. He patted his pockets - careful, Sara noticed, never to give the impression that he was going for a weapon; he had to know where her other hand was - then frowned again. "Hmph," he said, as if annoyed with himself. "Guess I left it in my other pants." Then, before she could speak the sardonic reply that immediately came to mind, he pushed back his sleeve and said with a twinkling, slightly conspiratorial grin, "Will this do?" By pushing back his sleeve, he'd revealed to her a gleaming red gem on a silver band around his wrist. As it caught Sara's eye, it flashed her a short telepathic message, informing her of just exactly who she was all but holding her service weapon on. Crimson flooded her cheeks, and she released the grip of her weapon as if she'd found it coated with a disagreeable slime. "Uh... yeah!" she said, covering her embarrassment with clumsy bonhomie. "Yeah, I, uh, I think that'll do for ID." Then, her face taking on a frozen, sickly sort of smile, she muttered through her teeth, "(ifeellikeacompleteidiot.)" Benjamin "Gryphon" Hutchins, the Chief of the International Police, smiled. "Oh, no, you did the right thing," he said. Glancing down at himself, he added ruefully, "I saw somebody as seedy-looking as me hanging around, I'd probably throw me out too." Sara chuckled wanly, thankful for his attempt at humor but not really in a position to appreciate it properly. "Uh... was there something you needed, sir?" she asked. "Not really," Gryphon replied mildly. He pulled the chair from behind one of the neighboring desks, sat down in it, leaned back comfortably with his legs crossed at the ankles, and went on, "So, Investigator Sidle, how... " He trailed off, his blue eyes tracking across her desk, and frowned again. "Hum." "... What?" she said, puzzled. "Well, I was about to ask how you're settling into New Avalon, but apparently you're -not-, if you don't have anything to do but go to work on the day after Thanksgiving," said Gryphon with a shrug. Sara chose to let that remark pass without comment - what could she say to it, anyway? He was right - and instead asked, "How did you know who I am?" Gryphon smiled. "I know who everyone in the IPO is," he said. "It's part of my job." Sara blinked again. "No kidding." He nodded. "How can I lead the force if I don't know who's on it? I apologize for not being around to welcome you when Gil recruited you, by the way. I like to do that." "Oh, uh... don't worry," she said, a little too offhandedly. "I understand you had other things to worry about." "True. Still, I don't like to give the impression that I'm not glad you're here." Then he got up and leaned toward her desk. "So what're you working on?" Before she could answer, he spied the book and grinned. "Ahhhh. Tire impressions. -Riveting-." Then he turned the grin to her and said, "C'mon, let's get out of here for a while." Sara raised an eyebrow in mild bafflement. "I'm sorry?" "You, me, leave the building," he explained. She gave him a more thoroughly confused look and inadvertently fell into a mimicking fragmentary speech pattern. "But... this case... I have... " /-- That night. Start of the shift. Chatter in the breakroom. Nick Stokes, disbelieving. "Lemme see if I've got this straight. The Chief came down here this morning, found you working when you didn't have to be, -asked you out-, but -you- said, 'Nah, I think I'd rather just stay here with my book of tire tracks.' You're a -freak-, Sidle. Hey Warrick! C'mere! You -gotta- hear this." Rest of the day, it's "So I hear you blew off the Chief" from everybody she meets. Lab techs. Doc Robbins. Uniforms. Hotdog vendors. Everybody in town seems to know. "Next time you see him, tell him I'll take your ticket if you don't want it." "Catherine! Bad enough I have to take this crap from all the -guys- in this place... " --/ "... OK." Sara Sidle had only lived in New Avalon since the summer, less than half a year. One of the things she was proudest of in her transition from the rather sedate life of Saenar, the Salusian Imperial City, to the towering bustle of New Avalon, was that she already knew her way around better than a lot of locals. Her job might require her to go anywhere in the city and its environs - actually, anywhere in the galaxy, but if she left Avalon County someone else would be driving - at a moment's notice. Electronic navigation systems helped, but couldn't always be relied on. So Sara had applied her considerable intellect and her equally considerable powers of concentration to learning the streets and highways, tunnels and bridges, backroads and alleys of the City in the Sphere. Within a month of her arrival in town, she was doing her share of the driving to crime scenes. It was a feat that hadn't gone unnoticed by her co-workers. They hadn't said anything out loud, but she knew they were impressed. New Avalon was not an easy city to learn. That said, she had no idea where she was right now, or just how she'd gotten there. They'd come out of the IPO parking garage, left on Allard, right on Central, and then... shrug. She had to admit, she'd expected a guy like the Chief to have a different kind of car. He was the top dog at the International Police, incalculably wealthy, a man of action, and all that. You'd expect a guy like that to have a flashier ride than this nondescript, boxy, dark grey coupe. The name badge on the decklid said "Skyline GTR". Sara had noticed it when she'd tossed her field case in the trunk under Gryphon's faintly amused eye - hey, you never know - but it meant nothing to her. She wasn't really a car girl. Whatever it was, he handled it with authority, and he knew the streets and alleys of New Avalon like Sara knew the back of her hand. She spent a lot of the ride looking out the windows, trying to lock onto a landmark and figure out where she was, but the effort proved futile until they suddenly popped out of a side street and into a pleasant square with a tree in the middle. The sight of the tree made everything click into place - they were in Arconian Square, the heart of Salutown, not far from New Avalon University's east gate. She half-turned in her seat to look at where they'd just come from. "I -live- around here and I've never noticed that street," she said after a few seconds' consideration. Gryphon smiled, guided the car into an angled parking slot along one side of the square, and shut it down. "Well," he said, "I don't want to seem smug or anything, but I -did- lay out the city." "Oh," said Sara as she climbed from the car. Then she looked around, taking stock of their situation, and asked, "So... what are we doing here?" Gryphon thumbed a button on the ignition key, causing the car doors to lock with a satisfyingly solid 'chunk' sound and the horn to pip once. Then he turned a friendly grin to Sara, angled a thumb over his shoulder, and said, "You like ice cream?" The Original Toscanini's wasn't terribly busy. There were only three other people in the place, besides the staff, when Gryphon and Sara walked in. The jukebox in the corner was playing Johnny Cash's "Ring of Fire", which struck Gryphon as a mildly peculiar selection for an ice cream parlor. They sat at one of the corner tables in the front and waited for their orders. While they did, Sara tried to figure out exactly what was going on. The Chief of the International Police had just wandered into the crime lab, apparently at random, and... taken her out for ice cream. Maybe the rumors were true. Maybe he -had- cracked up a little. Just after the waiter brought their sundaes, her curiosity finally got the better of her and, before her better judgment could intervene, she asked, "Is this, like, a job interview or something? 'Cause I've heard you like to do this kind of thing with prospective employees sometimes, and I have to say, it's a little late to be deciding whether you want to hire me." Gryphon grinned. "Oh, no, not at all," he said. "Gil already made that decision. No, I'm deciding something entirely different now." Sara waited for him to elaborate on that remark, but the next thing he said, after a pause too long to be rhetorical, was, "Do you think the lab needs a Mark XV phase analyzer?" Sara frowned thoughtfully. "That's a seriously expensive piece of equipment," she mused. "I mean, it's not like we get a lot of cases involving atomic phase displacement." "Sure, but if you -do-, you're going to need a PA to gauge the resonance arcs," Gryphon pointed out. "Well, yeah, I can't argue with that... " Sara's voice trailed off, and then she said, "How do you know about forensic analysis equipment? I figured you'd have people to do that for you." Gryphon smiled. "I like to keep up to date," he said. Sara searched his smile for a moment, then said slowly, "You... didn't come up to the lab to ask me about this, did you?" Gryphon shook his head. "No," he said. "Actually, I was looking for your boss. Thinking about it now, I'm kind of surprised I -didn't- find him working on his day off." "Grissom? What did you want to talk to him about?" "The Big Fire killings." Sara nodded. "Ah. That's been preoccupying Gris, too. He's probably not in the office because he's spending his day off rechecking the scenes." She shook her head. "I don't know what he expects to find. I've never -seen- cleaner crime scenes. My -apartment- has more useful evidence in it than one of those scenes." Gryphon chuckled. "Well, maybe we should be looking there, then," he said with a wry smile. Sara arched one dark eyebrow at him, reminding him very strongly of Vulcans he had known, and he went on, "Anyway, I was reading the file this morning and wanted to check with him on a couple of things. How familiar are you with the case?" "Reasonably," Sara replied. "I know someone's been hitting Big Fire enclaves around the city, taking out low- to mid-level operatives, some probably stationed here, some in town for jobs they never made it to, based on what little we know about Big Fire's operational structure. And I know that the scenes never have anything present which indicates that anyone other than the victims have ever been there, which is impossible." "Or at least not very likely," Gryphon agreed, nodding. "That's what got me to thinking about the phase analyzer. I happen to know a girl who can walk through walls. She's not a suspect by any stretch - she's an Expert - but where there's one with an ability, there may be more." Sara arched the other eyebrow. "You're kidding. She can shift out of atomic phase with the normal universe?" "I've seen it," Gryphon said. "It's a hell of a trick at parties." They talked over various aspects of the case while they ate, and presently Sara warmed to him more and more. He was surprisingly well-informed as to not only the investigative end of the case, which she had expected, but also the evidentiary part. Granted, that didn't amount to a hill of beans, but still - he knew a thing or two about what they did on the tenth floor. Not just enough to be dangerous and irksome, like some officials they ended up working with (the sheriff of Avalon County came to mind), but enough to be a well-informed and useful part of an investigation. She found herself thinking it was a shame he didn't do much field work; it'd probably be a good time, working a case with him. It was, she realized with a mild shock, a pretty good time just hanging out with him. Somewhere in the last half-hour or so they'd moved from talking about the case to talking about... stuff. Sara wasn't generally all that good at talking about stuff, especially when that stuff included herself, so she was surprised to find herself doing just that as they finished off their ice cream. "... so after I graduated from the Science Academy, I moved back to Salusia and took a job with the Ministry of Public Security," she said. "I worked there until July, when Gris called and said he needed backup for... " She suddenly trailed off as it occurred to her just what the case was that had occasioned Grissom to call her to New Avalon, and why that might not have been a good subject to introduce into what had been an increasingly more pleasant and carefree conversation. Gryphon caught the thread of it and only smiled, just a trifle sadly but without bitterness. "Thanks for coming," he said, and she wasn't entirely sure whether he meant "to New Avalon" or "with me today." Sara opened her mouth to say something else, but before she could get it out, a strident beeping cut into the silence. She scowled (she disliked having her train of thought interrupted), then gave him an apologetic look and fished her pager from her belt. She consulted it, her face taking on a slightly alarmed expression, and then looked over it at him. "I, uh, I have to go," she said, at a bit of a loss. "Can you run me back to the office?" "I can do better than that," he said, getting to his feet and tossing some money down on the table. Over the course of the next four minutes, Sara Sidle had to revise her opinion of Gryphon's car. It might be boxy, it might be grey, and it might be boring-looking, but -damn-, could it -move-. Her job involved a decent amount of making one's way at higher-than- normal speeds through traffic, and a couple of the people she worked with had driving habits that bordered on the maniacal, but the trip from Tosci's to the crime scene out in Westmont was the wildest ride of her career. "Do you mind loud music?" he asked as they piled into the Skyline. "No," she replied. "Good," he said. "You'll want to fasten your seat harness," he added. Then he fired up the car, threw it out of the parking space, dropped it into first, thumbed on the blue flashers built into the back of the rearview mirror, switched on the sound system, and launched that boxy old car like a missile down a side street that at first seemed too narrow to admit it. /* Seat Belts "Rush" _Cowboy Bebop_ */ What followed was a virtuoso demonstration of wheelmanship, a sort of sonata of speeding. Gryphon used every trick he had - the car's much-greater-than-apparent performance, his intimate knowledge of the byways of the city, and driving skills honed by centuries of experience - to get Sara all the way across town and into the western outskirts in the time it would take most people to get from Tosci's to the freeway. CSI3 Warrick Brown was just getting out of his company truck when a dark grey antique Skyline coupe came roaring over the rise just up the road from the scene, went into a very precise power skid, and halted neatly at the curb one house down from the clutch of cop cars and Warrick's truck. "Who the hell is that?" wondered the hard-faced, middle-aged man in the suit standing next to Brown. "Beats me," Warrick replied. "You're the cop, run his plates." Chief Inspector Jim Brass of the New Avalon Police gave him a wry look. "I'm in Homicide," he said sardonically. "I don't run plates." The Skyline had hardly come to a stop before the two people inside unstrapped and climbed out. Brass recognized the woman immediately - dark-haired, Salusian, tastefully if understatedly dressed, she was a very familiar sight in places like this - but the guy in the green Army jacket eluded him for the moment. "Interesting entrance, Sidle," he remarked as he crossed to the car. "Where'd your boyfriend learn how to park?" "Royal Salusian Security Service Academy, 1995," the guy in the jacket replied, sticking out a hand. As the gem on his wrist glinted at Brass and told its story, he added with a grin, "You're looking good, Jim." "Oh, it's you," Brass replied, shaking the offered hand but affecting to look unimpressed. "I didn't recognize you in your homeless-vet camouflage," he added, gesturing to the jacket. Warrick and his colleague Nick Stokes stood by their truck, staring in blank astonishment. "(That's the Chief!)" Nick blurted in a muffled whisper. "(No kidding,)" Warrick replied sarcastically. "(What was your first clue?)" "What've we got?" Gryphon asked Brass as the two men walked toward the cluster of cop cars with Sara, field kit in hand, trotting to catch up with them. "Well, it's early yet," Brass observed, "but it looks like another hit on a Big Fire safe house." "Boy, I'd love to know how this guy keeps finding them before we do," Gryphon mused. "Grissom's not holding anything back this time," Brass told him. "He paged in his whole crew. Stokes and Brown are already here, Sidle just made her grand entrance, so now we're just waiting for the man himself and - " As he spoke, another black truck pulled up next to the one Warrick and Nick had arrived in, and two more people got out. One was a man of early middle years, another humanized Salusian, with dark curly hair going grey at the temples; the other was a smartly dressed, slim blonde human female, of about the same apparent age and holding up quite well indeed. Both carried field kits like the ones held by the other investigators. Gryphon smiled, broke away from Brass, and crossed to the newcomers. The woman - CSI3 Catherine Willows - spotted him first. Her face broke into a broad smile, and she immediately embraced him, an act which caused the jaws of Warrick and Nick to drop again. This time Sara's joined them. "Hello, Cath," he said, returning the hug. "How're you holding up?" she asked. "I'm so sorry about Kei." "I'm OK," Gryphon replied. "Getting by with a little help from my friends. You?" "Oh, you know," Willows said, smoothing her silk blouse with a wry grin. "Not going down without a fight, but going down, all the same." Gryphon chuckled. "Well, just for the record, I still definitely would," he said, waggling his eyebrows. Catherine laughed. "You say the sweetest things," she said, then leaned and kissed him on the cheek. "I've gotta get to work. Dinner if I get a lunch break?" "Sure," he said, and then turned to the man, who had been waiting patiently with a look of mild bemusement throughout his exchange with Catherine. "Hey, Gil." Gil Grissom, supervisor of the IPO crime lab, gave his ultimate superior the bemused look for a moment longer, then shook his hand and said cordially, "Benjamin. I hope you're not here to look over my shoulder and badger me? I expect that kind of behavior from Brian Mobley, not from you." Gryphon grinned. "I'll stay outside the tape. Promise." Grissom nodded, satisfied. Then he gave the First Lensman a querying look and asked, "Then why -are- you here?" "I just happened to be with one of your investigators when the page went out, so I gave her a lift." Grissom raised an eyebrow, then let the matter slide by and returned his attention to more pressing concerns. "I'll let you know what I find," he said, and then went to brief his investigators. They stood in the doorway of what had once been the living room of a mid-range suburban home and surveyed the carnage. "Just like the others," Nick mused. "On the surface," Grissom agreed, nodding. "At least it's not another warehouse job," Warrick said. "Limited space keeps the body count down." "Half a dozen DBs is plenty for me, thanks," Catherine said. "Where's the coroner?" "Been and gone," Grissom told her. "It's all ours." "I see our friend is still signing his work," Sara observed, pointing her pocket flashlight at the far wall. The sheetrock there was adorned with a graffito that had become depressingly familiar to the night shift CSIs over the last couple of months: BIG FIRE: ALLEGIANCE IS DEATH "It's not a sentiment you'd get a lot of argument about from the man on the street," said Warrick. "Murder's murder, Warrick," Grissom said distractedly as he picked his way carefully around the perimeter of the room toward the marked wall. "Yeah, it doesn't look like these guys were plotting the imminent overthrow of the Sphere," Sara agreed. The coffee table in the middle of the room told the story: The men and women, four of them in at least partial Black Hood uniforms, had been playing cards and eating pizza when their unknown assailant had kicked down the front door and started shooting. Three of them hadn't even made it out of their chairs. "What's the message written in this time, I wonder," Catherine said. "Looks like blood," said Nick with more than a trace of disgust, but Grissom, who had reached the marks, shook his head. The supervisor leaned close to the wall, sniffing thoughtfully, then turned back to his crew with a wry smile. "Sweet and sour sauce," he reported. "He's still using whatever's handy," Warrick said. He gestured to an open carton of sweet and sour pork sitting on the end table by the couch, an incongruous distance from the rest of the food. Grissom nodded. "Print it." "He's not sloppy enough to leave us anything, but at least we can say we did it," Warrick sighed as he opened his field kit. Six hours later, they were back in a cluster under the arch to the foyer, looking disheveled, weary, and discouraged. "Nothing," said Warrick disgustedly. "Just like the others," Nick agreed. "No hair, no fiber, no prints. Ten to one all the blood we find in here's from the vics. It's like there was never anyone here but them." "The absence of evidence is itself evidence, Nick," Grissom observed. They went back to the lab and processed what they'd collected at the scene. As Stokes had predicted, they got a whole lot of nothing, just like at the others. It was all very discouraging. Of course, they all agreed, it could've been worse - the mystery killer could've been taking out decent citizens instead of Big Fire goons - but even so, they were one of the best crime scene investigation units in the galaxy and they knew it. Coming up empty was hard, and coming up empty at multiple scenes was downright insulting. At nine in the evening, Catherine Willows got tired of playing jacks with no ball and went up to the 38th floor, then down the hall to the office at the end. The frosted glass window in the office door cast a rectangle of light on the carpet of the darkened hallway. Catherine opened the door to find two young women in the Chief's outer office. One, a tall, slim girl with bright green eyes, slightly orange skin, and long auburn hair, sat at the desk, doing something on the built-in dataterminal. The other, a dusky girl with neatly bobbed violet hair, appeared to be levitating above the couch by the far wall, eyes closed, face deeply composed. "Hi," said Catherine, unfazed. "Hello!" said the green-eyed girl at the desk. "Welcome to the Chief's office. I am Koriand'r. Lieutenant Durgo is on vacation. How can I help you?" Catherine smiled at her earnest friendliness. "I'm Catherine Willows from the crime lab," she said, almost automatically. Koriand'r's welcoming smile widened. "Gryphon is expecting you," she said. "Go right in." "Thanks," said Catherine. She glanced at the meditating girl, who had shown no indication of awareness that anything had happened in the outer office at all, then smiled at Koriand'r again and went into the inner office. Gryphon was at his desk, frowning at something on the screen of his own terminal. The frown was erased as he saw the blonde entering, and he stood up to lean across the desk and grab her hand for a second in both of his. "Time for a bite?" Catherine asked. "With you, anytime," Gryphon replied. "I'm just spinning my wheels here, anyway. Reading up the reports from when Steve was filling in for me." "Do you sleep?" Catherine asked with a smile as he shrugged into his coat. "More than you'd expect," he replied. /* Joe Satriani "Baroque" _Time Machine_ */ They went to a diner on Fulton Street, a favorite haunt of Gryphon's from the early days of the city - back when it was basically a huge construction site with a smallish town's worth of occupied buildings scattered around it. "So," said Catherine after they'd gotten settled and ordered burgers. "I hear you took the new girl out for a snack this morning." Gryphon gave her a mildly puzzled look. "Well, you know," he said, "I was in the office, she was in the office... why?" "It's going around the lab. You know how these things are." Catherine smiled. "She's a little stunned." "Really? By what?" "By YOU," Catherine replied, a touch exasperated. "You're a little famous, you know." Gryphon blinked, looking as though he genuinely hadn't thought of that. "Oh," he said. "I wasn't trying to impress her... " Catherine grinned. "I know. I think that's what impressed her," she added. "I thought she seemed a bit distracted, but I figured it was just because she was wrapped up in her work... " "She -is- wrapped up in her work. Habitually," Catherine said. "But in this case there was a little more to it. You've got to be careful with that reputation of yours," she added with a wry smile. "If you don't watch it, you can smack into people with it and not even notice, like a guy carrying a long board." Gryphon chuckled ruefully, shaking his head. "You know, Cath, there are days when I'd trade it all for the ability to just... be a regular guy." "Ben, you've always -been- a regular guy," Catherine said. "Even when I first met you, when you were building this town -and- rebuilding the WDF, you managed to be a regular guy. You're just a regular guy who happens to save the universe every couple of weeks," she added with a grin. Gryphon laughed. "Those were the days, huh?" "Yeah. They sure were. But here's the thing: These are the days too. You know?" He nodded. "Mm." A thoughtful pause. "She's a nice girl, Cath," he said after a while. "I like her." Catherine studied his face for a few seconds, then said, "But?" "But my world is damned dangerous," Gryphon said soberly. "Not that you guys have it -easy-, but... " He shrugged. "You don't have the Magnificent Ten personally gunning for you." "Well, the night is young," Catherine said with a grin. "Seriously, Cath," he said. "I'm not sure what I was thinking this morning, but I'd better not make a habit of doing things like that. It's not responsible of me to ask a, a -scientist- to step into the line of fire like that. I probably shouldn't even be here with you." "Don't have friends because you have enemies? That's a recipe for ending up alone and crazy," Catherine said flatly. "Better that than see someone die just for being my friend." "Ben, you know, my grandfather had a saying: Don't borrow trouble." Gryphon chuckled, his dark mood cracking slightly. "My grandfather used to say that too... " Sobering again, he went on, "But he didn't have to deal with what I'm up against." He leaned across the table toward her, his eyes intent, and went on, "Look, Cath... I have powerful enemies, and not long ago, one of them - and I can't even figure out which one! - reached out and just... -took away- one of the people I thought would be most able to handle that kind of trouble for herself." Catherine nodded. "And now you're afraid to associate yourself with anyone outside your little... " She made a vague gesture. "Super-heroes' club." Gryphon looked mildly miffed at the phrasing, but nodded anyway. "More or less." Catherine shook her head with a rueful snort. "You just met her, what, this morning? And in your head somebody's already killed her. Don't you get it? If you let that kind of thinking rule your actions, they've already beaten you." Gryphon looked surprised, as though that hadn't occurred to him. "Look, Sara's an adult," Catherine said. "She can make her own decisions as to what is and isn't worth the risk." She chuckled. "But I'll tell you right now, she won't see it that way. She doesn't let people she -knows- control her like that, let alone shadowy forces from beyond... wherever." Then, with a grin and a wicked glint in her blue eyes, she added, "Besides, she doesn't date outside her species." Gryphon raised an eyebrow; she shrugged and said, "That's what she said, anyway. It came up in one of those breakroom conversations one day." "Oh. Well, maybe the discussion's moot, then." "Maybe, but my point stands. You can't let what happened to Kei isolate you. You're stronger when you're not trying to stand alone - you've always known that." Gryphon looked thoughtfully across the table at her for a few seconds, then smiled. "Where'd you get all this -wisdom-?" he asked. "I'm ten times your age and you're running circles around me." Catherine laughed. "Some girls got it," she said. A moment later the food arrived. "So," said Gryphon, casting about for an easier topic. Finding one, he smiled and asked, "How's Lindsey?" Catherine smiled fondly, a new light coming into her eyes. "She's great," she said. "Spending all my money at boarding school," she added with a laugh. "She says she wants to be a crim, God help her. I try to talk her out of it, but every horror story I come up with just whets her appetite, the little ghoul." She made a fondly exasperated gesture. "Grissom doesn't help, either. Every time she's in town she comes to the lab, and he's all over telling her about our cases, which gets everybody else in on the act, and the next thing you know it's a symposium. You should have seen her reaction to the scuba diver up a tree." Gryphon snorted, almost decorating his tablemate with root beer foam. "Scuba diver up a TREE?" he inquired when he could talk again. "Or the guy who got pulled over with a head in the car and said he could explain. She loved that one. She's a sick, sick child." "Could he explain?" "Yeah, as a matter of fact, he could," Catherine said. "The explanation was truly bizarre, and none of us believed him for a minute, but of course it turned out to be true. The really bizarre ones always are." They talked about less gruesome topics while they ate, then passed on dessert. As they were getting ready to leave, Catherine looked pensive for a moment, then said, "Would you mind running me back to the Westmont scene? I keep feeling like we missed something." "Sure," he replied. "Ah - no need to rush," Catherine added as she slipped into the passenger seat of the Skyline. Gryphon affected a pout. "You're no fun," he said. He took her back over at a sedate pace, then stood in the foyer, arms folded, leaning on the archway, while she paced the room again. It was dark and more than a little eerie, with the bodies removed but the bloodstains still showing where they'd been, the furniture still overturned. Gryphon wondered why Catherine didn't just turn the lights on, rather than poking around the room with the beam of her little pocket flashlight - but, hey, she was the crime scene investigator. What did he know about it? "Nothing," she said, sighing, after about three-quarters of an hour's worth of lurking about. "Nicky was right. We - " She trailed off, her eyes falling on a shelf on the wall next to the archway. "What?" Gryphon wondered. Catherine stepped to the wall and trained her flashlight on the underside of the shelf. "What do you make of this?" she asked. Gryphon leaned around the archway, looked, and saw a thin grey line running across the wood, from midway through the shelf's depth to the wall. "Carpenter's mark?" "Two-thirds of the way down the shelf?" Catherine replied, shaking her head. She placed her gloved fingertips against the underside of the shelf, and lifted it gingerly up. Her face broke into a broad grin as this action revealed a bullet hole - neatly concealed by the edge of the shelf when it sat on its brackets. "Hello, sailor," she murmured. "Hold my light, willya?" Gryphon complied. She rummaged in her topcoat pockets for a pair of tweezers and a paper evidence envelope, then lifted the shelf again, worked the bullet out of the hole, and dropped it into the envelope. "Now, if our luck keeps going the way it has for most of this case," Catherine said as Gryphon drove them back toward IPO HQ, "this will have been a clean miss from one of the Black Hoods' guns, and we'll be right back where we started from. But I think finding it means our luck's turned around." She grinned and patted her chest, where the bullet in its envelope rode in her inside topcoat pocket. "The near miss lifted up the shelf, the bullet rode along underneath it, and then the shelf fell back down to cover the hole. I saw that on an old TV show one time." Catherine turned her grin to him. "I saw the same show. That's what made me think of it." Trying to interpret the evidence in this case, Sara Sidle decided, was a bit like being into Nietzsche. You gaze into the abyss; the abyss gazes into you. She sat back from the case file and sighed, tired of the scrutiny. "Hey," said a voice from the doorway to the bullpen. "Hey," she replied, turning to see Warrick Brown. "Got anything?" Warrick asked. "Bupkis," she replied. "You?" "Nah," he said, plopping down in another chair and swinging it to face her. "We got a hand, but it's all junk." Sara looked momentarily confused - she didn't remember anything about any hands in the evidence log - until she realized he was making a card-playing metaphor. "So," Warrick went on. "Hear you met the Chief." "Yeah. He, uh, wandered in here this morning looking for Grissom." "And found you instead." "I was looking over some tire impressions from that case on Altamira." Warrick smiled slightly. "'On her days off, CSI2 Sidle enjoys working,'" he said, imitating the slightly pompous tone of the department newsletter. "I'm sure it's better than whatever you do on your day off," Sara replied wryly. "Better for society, anyway," Warrick acknowledged. "Better for you... ?" He shrugged. "You're not my mother, Warrick," said Sara, a trifle defensively. "I'm not trying to be," he replied mildly. "Don't get excited. I'm just saying... it wouldn't kill you to have some fun one of these days." "I have fun," Sara insisted. Under Warrick's skeptical smile, she flushed slightly and repeated, "I -have- fun," changing the emphasis a little. Warrick would have replied - or maybe just kept smiling inscrutably at her until she threw something - but just then the bullpen door opened and the Chief poked his head in. "Hey Sara?" he said. Sara, still a bit flustered from her conversation with Warrick, jumped slightly in her chair and turned to face him. "Yes, uh, what, yes?" "You like hockey?" Gryphon asked. "Razors-Senators, tomorrow at 7:30... " "Huh? Oh, uh, sure!" Sara replied, in the fashion of someone who isn't entirely sure what's just been asked. Gryphon grinned. "Great!" he said. "Pick you up at 6?" "Uh... OK!" "Cool. Hey, Warrick," Gryphon added. "Hey," Warrick responded, nodding, and then, with a wave, Gryphon had gone. Sara sat looking at where he'd just been for a moment, almost completely flummoxed; then she turned to see Warrick still giving her that same little smile. "There, you see?" she said, rising. "I have fun." She nodded once, as a kind of gestural period at the end of the pronouncement, then turned and left the bullpen with a mildly distracted air, brushing past Nick Stokes on her way out. "Hey, Sar - " he said, but she paid him no attention. He turned quizzically to Warrick. "What's with her?" Warrick shrugged, still smiling. "She's adjusting her worldview," he said. "Tell me something I want to hear, Greg," said Catherine. "OK; your hair looks fabulous that way," Greg Sanders replied agreeably. Catherine chuckled. "About my bullet?" "Ah. Well, if you want me to be boring... " Sanders pivoted in his chair, gesturing to the small pellet of metal sitting on the stage of the microscope on one of the several tables in his lab space. "According to Dawson in Ballistics, your bullet is actually Victim No. 3's bullet. .40-caliber hardball. But! Obviously it wouldn't be in -my- humble abode if that was all there was to it, so... " The printer next to the microscope beeped and chuntered, then spat out a sheet of paper. Sanders whipped it from the output tray with a flourish, read it, and then grinned. "Looks like your shooter got winged," he said. Catherine came up beside him to look it over, and as she took the printout from his hand, the grinning Dantrovian lab tech draped his catlike tail on her shoulder. (This was a liberty he was only permitted when he'd come up with something good. Catherine liked to think of it as an incentive program.) Catherine read the printout, then smiled a slightly predatory smile. "Got him," she said. "Only question is, who is he?" "Well, I can't tell you that, at least not yet," he admitted. "He's not in COGENT. I can tell you -what- he is, to a degree, though. He's a human male, non-telepath, non-Detian, marker configuration indicates he's probably a Zardon." "Zardon?" Catherine mused. "That's why he's not in COGENT." "Right. They don't like to let their computers play with other people's computers. The Justice Department is a harsh mistress. But there's something else," he added. "Take a look here." He pointed to the bottom of the sheet. "What's that?" Catherine wondered, sounding puzzled. "I can't say for certain," Greg said. "The sample had a trace of a second DNA signature in it, but it was too small for me to get a solid read on. I can tell you this much, though - it's not human." He shrugged. "I'll know more if you can get me a bigger sample." "Hmm," Catherine mused. Then she turned and headed for the door. "Thanks, Greg." "No problem. Hey, do you have any Yule plans?" He made a raised-eyebrows grin as she paused at the door. "I'm still trying to put together a quorum for Aalaniku." Catherine gave him an apologetic smile. "Sorry, Lindsey's coming home for break. Maybe Terzayyl?" Greg nodded, spreading his hands equably. "It's all good," he said. "Just let me know in advance so I know how much pudding to order." Catherine laughed and left the lab. "... Which means we need someone to go to Zardon," Grissom said. He stood for a moment with the report in his hand, the knuckle of his other index finger curled around the tip of his chin, and surveyed his troops. They stood arrayed around him in an expectant semicircle, like they always did when he had assignments to hand out. It was almost enough to make him smile, if the matter at hand hadn't been so serious. Grissom looked from one CSI to the next, down the line, his face thoughtful. Then he turned and offered the printout to Sara Sidle. "This is top priority, Sara. It's the first lead we've ever gotten on this guy, and who knows when we'll ever get another one? Pack a bag. I'll call Tech Div and have them warm up the Stargate for you." Warrick Brown silently gave himself 2-to-1 odds on his prediction of what happened next, and was unsurprised when they paid off. Sara took the file, said, "I'll get my kit," and made to leave Grissom's office. "Nah, hey, Sara, I got that," Warrick said, doing his best to sound casual. Sara turned, her expression equal parts surprise and annoyance. "I think I can handle a database search, Warrick, thanks," she said in her miffed-cordial tone. Grissom nodded. "I want Sara on this job, Warrick." Warrick considered just coming right out with it, but he knew that would just make things worse. Sara was one of the most private people he knew. She wasn't entirely comfortable with the fact that he knew she -had- a date; she certainly wouldn't thank him for blurting it out to everybody else on the shift. There was only one other course he could take. He nodded. "OK. Just... you know, felt like takin' a little road trip myself." Grissom smiled. "There'll be other opportunities," he said. "Sure," Warrick said. "No problem." Sara nodded, satisfied that -that- was taken care of, and said cheerily, "Bye, guys. I'll send you a postcard from Mega-City One if I have time." Warrick waited impatiently while Gris handed out assignments for other cases to work while they waited for Sara's results, took his case sheet, and then ran to the stairs. Sara had swung through the bullpen, grabbed her field kit, and headed for the elevator. If he hurried, Warrick could still beat her to the parking garage and catch her on the way to her car. He ran down the fire stairs as fast as he could go, probably a little too fast, and managed to get to the underground parking level without breaking his neck. He bashed through the panic-barred doors, emerging into the cold, oily-smelling concrete void of the garage, turned with a triumphant grin to face the elevator... ... and watched with a sinking heart and a falling face as the floor indicator above the doors blinked right past the garage and down to the deep subbasements. Sara wasn't going home to pack a bag. She was headed straight for the Stargate, and there was no way in hell Warrick was going to beat her there now. He could try to get her on the com, but he knew Sara well enough to know that she wouldn't bother answering it until she was through the gate anyway. He leaned forward, hands on knees, and caught his breath, panting, "Shit." Sara emerged from the Stargate - a sensation she would never quite get used to - and took a moment to regain her bearings. She could never quite decide if it helped or hurt that the rooms where the gates were installed tended to look very much the same. While she was thinking that over, a large man in the black and gold armor and visored helmet of a street Judge came over to her. "Investigator Sidle?" he said. "I'm Judge Karsten. I'm going to have to take your weapon. Only Judges may be armed in the Hall of Justice." "Hm? Oh... sure," she said. Carefully, she drew her weapon, keeping her finger well away from the trigger guard, and presented it to the Judge. He checked it over, then snapped a trigger lock onto it and put it into a small armored locker near the door. "You can claim it on your way back," he said. "First visit to the Hall?" Sara nodded. "First visit to Zardon, period," she said. Karsten smiled slightly. "Your supervisor called ahead with a heads-up on what you'll need. The Records Division is on the 48th floor, left out of the elevator. The Teks there will give you what help they can." Sara wasn't sure she liked the sound of that, but she thanked him anyway. Then she put her evidence kit down next to the lockers, wondering vaguely why she'd bothered to bring it - was she expecting to dust the Hall of Justice for prints? - and left the gateroom. Outside the gear-cluttered, warehouse-like confines of the gateroom, the interior design of the Hall of Justice was grandiose and at the same time vaguely oppressive. It made Sara feel uneasy. She'd be glad, she decided, to leave this place behind her. She rode the elevator to the 48th floor, turned left, and went into a large whirring white room, where a man in a grey jumpsuit stood behind a counter. Behind him, Sara could see rank upon rank of cubicles, like a person would expect to see on the development floor of a big software company, each occupied by someone else in a grey jumpsuit. "Hi," she said to the technician at the counter. "Sara Sidle, IPO CSI. I need you to have your ACI run a record search for me." The Tek gave her an irritated look. "We do manual lookups of all that here," he said in a tone of voice which implied that she was very stupid for not having known that already. "Clerks are cheaper than self-aware computers, and they don't pose as much of a potential security threat." Struggling to remain affable, Sara pulled Greg Sanders's printout from her jacket, smoothed it on the counter, and said, "Well, we're going to need this profile checked against the database." The Tek angled a thumb toward a cubicle off to the side, by the end of the counter. "There's a terminal," he grunted. "Knock yourself out." "But - " "Listen, furball," the Tek snapped, "we don't have the resources to handle every piddling little request for information that comes in from offworld. Take the terminal or take a walk. Those are your choices. Now if you'll 'scuse me? I've got work to do." Sara stifled her instinctive reaction, which was to cram Greg's printout down the guy's throat, and forced herself to smile. Nobody was going to be able to say that Gil Grissom's CSIs were rude to allied personnel, even when they had a right to be. "OK!" she said. "Well, uh, thanks for all your help... " She trailed off, since the guy wasn't listening; he'd turned as soon as she'd said OK and walked off to the other end of the counter, as far away from her as he could get without abandoning his post. "(... creep,)" she finished, and then went to the terminal. There she had another unpleasant surprise: The search system wasn't automated at -all-, at least not for profile searches. She could search by name, but to match an unknown name to a known profile, she'd have to do it the old-fashioned way... ... one record at a time. Sara frowned at the screen for a few seconds, then cracked her knuckles, propped Greg's printout on the copy stand next to the screen, and got to work. Gryphon sat at his desk looking faintly bemused as Warrick Brown told him the story. "... so she went to Zardon. You have to understand, man, it's the way her mind works. It's all... compartmented." Gryphon smiled. "Yeah. It's the job, I understand. Thanks for letting me know, though. I'd have been rousting Grissom at 6ish tomorrow going 'Hey, uh, have you seen Sara?'" Warrick nodded, relieved. "OK, well... that's it, then, I guess." He got up from the visitor chair and turned to go. "Hey, Warrick?" Gryphon said. "Yeah?" Warrick asked, turning back. "You a hockey fan?" Gryphon held up a couple of bits of pasteboard between two fingers and grinned. "Seems I've got an extra ticket to tomorrow's game... " SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 28, 2409 <> SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2409 "Hey," said Catherine. "Yeah," Nick Stokes grunted from the depths of a microscope. "What're you doing?" "Take a look at this," Stokes said by way of reply. He moved out of the way so she could follow the request. "Striated metal. Piece of a bullet jacket?" Catherine mused. "That's what I thought at first, but look at the way it's deformed," Nick said. "That's not impact damage." "Where's this from?" Catherine asked. "Not the house in Westmont." "No. It's from the warehouse on Cuzco Court." "Hmmm. I dunno, Nicky. It's not copper... some kind of weird alloy, Greg might be able to tell us more about that. It's not like anything I've ever seen before - hey, Warrick!" Warrick paused in the hall, turned, and entered the trace evidence lab. "Yeah?" "What do you make of this?" Catherine asked, moving aside to let him at the scope. "Hmm," Warrick said as he studied the object. For a few seconds, his face showed he was drawing as much of a blank as Catherine had, but then he smiled slowly. "Ahhhh," he said. "I know what this is." "You do?" Nick asked. "What is it?" Catherine added. "It's a piece of the penetrator jacket from an ECX round." "A what?" "ECX - it's a type of exploding bullet. Old-fashioned, but some serious die-hards still use 'em. They've got an exotic alloy jacket that holds together long enough for the round to punch through armor, and an explosive core that goes off when they do. Probably what made that big hole in the wall at the Cuzco Court warehouse." Nick nodded. "This was found near that hole," he said. "And we're just getting to it now?" "There were a -lot- of little pieces of metal at that scene," Nick pointed out. "Well, that's what I think it is," Warrick said. "Give you 10 to 1, you run it over to Greg, he'll ID the alloy as an exotic high-mass and find traces of a high-end plastic explosive - Marplek, maybe, or Plitex." Nick grinned. "No bet," he said. "I want you to be right too much." <> "Warrick called it," Greg announced. "The alloy's called Duracon VII. It's used in Destroid armor, photon torpedo casings, and... ?" "ECX rounds," Warrick finished, nodding grimly. "What's the explosive?" "Plitex 9. Standard high-yield plastic explosive, 40 years ago. Salusian special forces used it; so did GENOM MILARM. It's been replaced by Plitex 11 in front-line service." "There can't be that many outfits that still make these rounds," Nick observed. "Three, according to the Galactic Munitions Manufacturers' Association," said Greg, nodding. "'Course, somebody could be cooking them up in a backstreet lab somewhere, but I doubt it. Duracon is a high-temperature alloy, it requires some pretty serious equipment to work with." "Thing is, ECX rounds are illegal for non-military use in a lot of jurisdictions, including this one," Warrick pointed out. "So chances are, our guy's buying them on the black market. I'll tell Brass, get him looking for suppliers." Grissom, who had been frowning thoughtfully in the corner the whole time, spoke up. "We're going to need to re-check the other crime scenes for this," he said. "Including the ones that were initially investigated by local agencies on the planets where they happened. We're still only surmising that all of these crimes are connected. This could be the first real link we get." "Second," Nick said. "Oh? What else have you got?" "I took a look at the anomalous shell casings from the Westmont scene," said Nick. "The ones that aren't from any of the vics' guns. They match casings found at all the other New Avalon scenes, -and- I just got a hit back from the local police on Talevan IV. -They- found a -pile- of casings at their scene, the one from back in September - same caliber, same weapon markings. It's the same guy, all right." Grissom nodded. "Good work, Nick." "It gets better," Stokes said, grinning. He pulled a photograph out of the file folder he carried and passed it around. "See those funny marks? They're not consistent with mechanical markings left by any weapon I've ever heard of, and Ballistics doesn't know what to make of them either." "Tool marks?" Grissom wondered. "They're annular," Warrick mused. "Could be from a reloading press. You know - guy makes his own ammunition... " "I thought of that," Nick said, shaking his head. "Dawson says the casing's never been reloaded. The reshaping process creates fatigue in the metal that none of these cases has. They're factory fresh, only been fired once." "A mystery within a mystery," Catherine said thoughtfully. Nick nodded. "Anyway, it's something to keep an eye out for. When we do eventually find this guy, he'll probably have -something- on him that makes annular marks on casings like that." Grissom nodded again. "OK." He shuffled through a sheaf of assignment tickets, parted them up, and handed half of them to Warrick. "Nick, you're with me. Warrick, you and Catherine are team two. We need to re-process all the out-of-Sphere crime scenes. The Chief wants us to kick out all the stops for this one, so we'll be using the Stargate network and fold couriers as necessary to get them all re-processed in a single day." As his troops slumped and groaned in dismay, Grissom went on placidly, "It's going to be a -long- day... " Then he smiled his playful little smile, the one that came on like a neon light and was surprisingly disarming, and said, "... but think of the mileage." MONDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2409 "... no... no... no... ... aaaaahhhh." Sara Sidle smiled for the first time in quite a while, levered her protesting frame up from the seat that had been her home for longer than she dared consciously think of, collected the printout from Greg's office, stuffed it back into her jacket pocket, and walked stiffly up to the counter. The records Tek, the same one who had greeted her when she arrived, looked up from whatever he was doing with a look of supreme disinterest. She'd been good for a laugh midway through day 2, when she briefly got so punchy that she started marking each discarded record by singing "no" to a note in a piece of classical music instead of just muttering it, but then she'd subsided back into grim monofocus and ceased to be interesting. "Hi," she said, smiling brightly. "I need you to print out record number 4458928(c)-49i416896." Tek Second Class Miller glanced at the clock, then folded his arms with a nasty smile. "I'm on break," he said. Sara's smile vanished instantly. Her primary ears reversed and flattened against her skull, more or less disappearing in her same-colored hair. Something unpleasant sparkled in her too-bright eyes as she leaned across the counter and said in a low, harsh voice, "NOW, monkeyboy. Unless you'd rather I got on the com and explained to the First Lensman that you seem to be obstructing a multiplanetary serial murder investigation because the suspect's a Zardon national." She narrowed her eyes and fixed him with her darkest, meanest glare. "Cool?" Miller leaned back in his seat and smirked up at her. "Are you threatening me?" he asked. "That's not very smart." Sara leaned further over the counter, the muscles at the corners of her jaw bunching, but before she could do anything else, the burly form of an armored Judge had appeared in the doorway behind her. "Is there a problem here, Records Officer?" the Judge inquired. Sara whirled and crossed to him, cutting in before Miller could speak. "The PROBLEM, Judge - " (she squinted at his badge) " - Beauregarde, is that I came here on an International Police matter and your records guy here has done nothing but insult me, hinder me, and laugh at me. I was under the impression that you people prided yourselves on your professionalism, but I see that's just another urban legend. Or maybe the war's not over for some of your guys?" Beauregarde stood for a second after this onslaught ended, the half of his face visible below his helmet visor blank with surprise. Then he said, "O... K. Hang on a second, ma'am, I'll see what I can do." Then he crossed to the counter, leaned - perhaps "loomed" is a better word - over it, almost visor-to-nose with Miller, and growled in a low voice that Sara figured she probably wasn't supposed to be able to hear, "(You asshole. How many times do I have to fucking tell you?)" "(What's your problem, Beau?)" Miller replied in a snarky whisper. "(She's just a Sally. Not even a Lensman!)" "(How'd you like to spend 60 in the Cubes for obstruction, Miller?)" Judge Beauregarde snarled. Miller smirked. "(You wouldn't.)" Beauregarde stared at him for a second, then straightened up and said in a public voice, "Obstruction of justice, 60 days. Run this lady's print job and then report to Booking, or I'll tack on contempt." Miller shot to his feet, his face purpling. "WHAT?!" he blurted. "But you - " "Miller," said Beauregarde in a stern, warning tone. Miller glared at him for a moment, then subsided, shoulders sagging. "Yes, sir," he said. Beauregarde stood and waited for him to print the file, then took the printout from him, waited for him to call a relief Tek to the desk, and pointed him out the side door. That done, he turned on his heel and walked back to Sara. "Your file, ma'am. I'm sorry about that." Sara blinked at him. "Did... you just send that guy to -jail-?" she asked, incredulous. Beauregarde smiled tightly. "This isn't the first time we've had a problem like this with Miller," he said. "Sixty days in the Iso-Cubes ought to give him a chance to re-think his customer focus." Sara raised her eyebrows and took the file, then managed a slightly wan smile and said, "... Cool." Beauregarde nodded. "Wouldn't want you to think we're all like that guy, ma'am. Have a good trip back to New Avalon." Sara watched him go, then riffled through the file before tucking it under her arm. It suddenly occurred to her how tremendously tired she felt. College days are gone, Sidle, she told herself wryly as she turned to leave the records office. You can't go for a whole week straight any more... As a professional crime scene investigator, Sara had been trained to pick up on things that didn't fit into their surroundings. It had become an automatic process that worked even when she was, as now, dead on her feet - a sort of extrasensory phenomenon, drawing her attention to anything that was out of place. The man standing by the decorative (if rather intimidating, like everything in this building) fountain in the middle of the elevator lobby was out of place. He wasn't tall enough or beefy enough to be a Judge, nor were his clothes right for a Judge or a Tek. He was wearing a dark blue wool overcoat, matching pants and snap-brim fedora hat, and a striped button shirt with a dark tie - conservative, coppish, but not in keeping with the rather brutal Zardon fashion sense. He stood with his hands in his trouser pockets, wrists pinning back the tails of his overcoat, watching the exit from the records department. When Sara emerged, he smiled, and she gazed quizzically at him before her tired brain clicked over and informed her that she recognized him. "What are you doing here?" she asked, puzzled. "I came to drive you home," Gryphon replied mildly. The only reply to that statement Sara could muster was a drawn-out "Uh... " "From Headquarters," he explained. "You're in no shape to drive." He sat down at one end of the marble bench by the fountain and waited for her to join him. Then, curiously rather than judgmentally, he asked, "Why didn't you call for help?" "I like to solve my own problems," Sara said. "I see that," Gryphon said, nodding. "But you might've at least paced yourself." "Grissom said it was top-priority," she replied doggedly. He let it go - she was barely conscious, let alone up to a deep exploration of her motivating factors. "So what'd you get?" he asked. "... Sara?" A moment later he was nudged slightly to starboard as she slumped against his shoulder, the file folder falling from her slack hand to the polished floor. For a moment he was alarmed by this, until he turned enough to get a look at her face and realized she'd just fallen asleep. "Tch," he said aloud. "I'll have to talk to Grissom about this." Then he picked up the folder, stuffed it into his overcoat, and considered for a moment the best way of handling the rest. Karla Archer had been a street Judge for ten years, and like any street Judge in any Mega-City, she'd seen her share of bizarre stuff on the job. Still, even she had to pause and blink at the sight of the First Lensman, Chief of the International Police, strolling through the corridors of the Hall of Justice with an unconscious Salusian woman curled up in his arms. "Afternoon, Karla," he said amiably as he passed the armored Judge. "... Chief," said Archer after a moment's confused silence. Gil Grissom was in his office, poring over his notes from the previous day's whirlwind road trip. He and the rest of his team had hit ten planets in six sectors, all in an 18-hour marathon of fold and Stargate travel. None had quite caught up on rest today, but they were all at least functional, and the trip hadn't been a waste of time or effort. Their conversations with local investigators, reviews of the locally collected evidence, and visits to the crime scenes had convinced them all beyond doubt that all of these crimes were linked. Residue from the same sort of ECX munitions as had been used in the Cuzco Court shootings was found in at least one scene on each planet. A team of investigators from the IPO's Criminal Investigations Division were working with Brass to track down suppliers of that ammo type. And then there was the other constant - the peculiarly marked shell casings Nick Stokes had first noticed. No, there was no doubt now that the same guy was doing all of these killings. The questions now were: Where was he now... and who was he? "She got him," Gryphon announced triumphantly, tossing the folder down on Grissom's desk. Grissom looked up at the grinning Chief for a second, then picked up the file and thumbed through it, a slow smile spreading onto his own face as he did so. "This is good," he said. "How long did it take her?" "76 hours, 39 minutes, 17 seconds, according to the logfile on the terminal she used," Gryphon replied. "Gil, we have to talk about that." Grissom took off his glasses and rubbed the spots where the pads touched his nose. "I know," he said. "I didn't think it would take her that long. Why didn't she ask the Zardons for help?" "She did. They wouldn't give it to her." Grissom blinked. "Then why didn't she tell us?" Gryphon half-smiled. "She likes to solve her own problems," he said. Grissom sighed. "Stubborn," he said, shaking his head. "She wants you to count on her," Gryphon said, shrugging. "So rather than come whining back that the Zardons weren't playing nice, she just gritted her teeth and did the job herself." He smiled. "Just make sure you show proper appreciation. Oh, uh, she's not coming into work tonight." Grissom nodded. "I suspected that part," he said with a wry smile. Then he flipped open the folder again. "So... now we know who our guy is. The only problem is... " The supervisor's eyes tracked down to the bottom of the block of personal information on the first page of the report. DATE OF DECEASE: 2389.03.03 "... he's supposed to be dead." Gryphon shrugged. "It'll come together," he said. Grissom nodded again. "I'll call you if we get anything new." "OK. Thanks, Gil," Gryphon said. "Thank you," said Grissom. Gryphon paused in the doorway. "What for?" "For taking care of Sara." Gryphon smiled. "My pleasure," he said, and left the office. Grissom turned back to the folder. An hour later, he had just completed a thorough perusal of its contents when Nick Stokes shoved his head and shoulders into the office doorway, looking gleeful. "I got those tool marks," he said. "Show me," Grissom replied, closing the Zardon report folder and setting it aside. Stokes came the rest of the way into the office and put a large, glossy photograph on Grissom's desk. "This is a shot of one of the cartridge casings we recovered from the Westmont crime scene," he said. "See the annular marks?" "Right, we talked about that earlier," Grissom said, nodding. "Similar casings were found at every scene in the chain." Nick grinned wider and put down a second photo. It showed a casing of a different caliber, clearly not one connected to their case, but sporting very similar ring-shaped scuff marks. "The casing on the -left- was recovered after a firefight on Babylon 6 two years ago - an IPO ally against a bunch of militant xenos from the Church of Man. It, and 172 more just like it, came from the weapons of a man called Brother Neo." Grissom glanced up from the photo. "-Brother- Neo?" "Yeah. He's a monk - of the Holy Order of Saint Ignatius the Defender." "Are you saying this pistol-packing monk is our killer?" "No," Nick said, shaking his head. "Different caliber, different tool marks, but the same -kind- of marks. Anyway, I checked the BPGD - Neo's a Lensman. He's not our killer - but he probably knows him." "Explain." "These rounds," Nick said, tapping the photo on the right, "were processed by a droid ammunition handler. The Ignatines make them." "Most monks make wine," Grissom remarked with an arched eyebrow. "Ignatius was a pretty hardcore saint," Stokes said. "His order's dedicated to battling against wickedness. They have a group of itinerants who roam the galaxy spreading St. Ignatius's justice." Grissom smiled. "That's good work, Nick." Stokes made a self-deprecating gesture. "That part's on their website," he said modestly. "Greg found it for me." Grissom chuckled. "Come on," he said. "Let's go see the Chief." As it happened, while Nick was explaining his findings to Grissom, Gryphon was already talking with a CSI supervisor. Not long after his return to the 38th floor, Conrad Ecklie, the day-shift supervisor on the tenth floor, had come barging into his office, telling Starfire he wished to discuss a "personnel matter" with the Chief. Tall, balding, and intense, Ecklie was a man who didn't have many friends in the building. He was a good investigator, but he was also arrogant, unlikeable, and jealous of credit, the kind of man who didn't work well with his peers and wasn't popular with his subordinates. Now he stood before Gryphon's desk with an obvious axe to grind, and Gryphon put on his mildest look before greeting him, "Evening, Conrad... what can I do for you?" "This is a private matter, Chief," Ecklie replied, casting a sharp glance at the violet-haired young woman who sat meditatively in the armchair at the end of Gryphon's desk. "Of course," Gryphon said amiably. "Raven, would you excuse us, please?" Raven opened one violet eye, looked first at Gryphon, then at Ecklie, then closed it again, making no effort to rise from the chair. "You're excused," she said, her voice low-pitched and almost toneless. Gryphon chuckled. "Raven's my apprentice, Conrad," he said. "Anything that's fit for me to hear... " He spread his hands. Ecklie scowled, sighed, and said, "Fine, then. I understand you've approved Grissom for the Test of Light." Gryphon nodded. "That's right. And?" "I have seniority in the crime lab," Ecklie said. When Gryphon failed to respond, he slapped a palm down on the Chief's desk and demanded, "Why was Grissom selected before me?" Gryphon sat back in his chair and looked up at the balding scientist. "You may not like the answer," he warned. "I think I've -earned- the answer," Ecklie shot back. "Fair enough. I didn't want to make a big issue out of it, but if you're really bent on knowing, it's because he's better than you," Gryphon said flatly. The body-check seemed to slow up Ecklie's momentum a little; he straightened, removing his hand from Gryphon's desk, and stared at him with something like astonishment for a second. "Look, Conrad," Gryphon said. "You're a good investigator, I'm not disputing that, but you have no talent for leadership, and Gris does. His shift's formed more than a team, they've become a family. They communicate, they interoperate, they create -synergy-. That gives them a higher clearance rate and a much higher satisfaction level. You know how many crims have left the night shift in the last five years? -None-. You -know- how remarkable that is," he pointed out. Ecklie folded his arms. "Yeah, well, at least -I- haven't gotten any of mine -killed-." Gryphon's face went perfectly still, a look which those who knew him better than Ecklie recognized as a dangerous one. "That's true," he said slowly. Then he looked up and fixed Ecklie with steely eye contact before adding calmly, "And that's why you still work here, Conrad." Ecklie glared back at him, clearly missing the point. "We'll see about that, won't we?" he said. Gryphon looked thoughtful. "It might not be such a bad idea at that. Listen," he said, holding up a palm to forestall protest. "The way we do things here doesn't suit your temperament. Maybe you'd be -happier- working someplace else. You'd be a good fit for a more conventional agency. I happen to know that the Zardon Justice Department is looking for a CSI supervisor for Mega-City Three. I'd be happy to write you a letter of recommendation." Ecklie gave Gryphon a dubious look, unable to figure out whether he was being offered help or obliquely fired. "You don't have to decide right now. Or at all, really," Gryphon said. "But it's something to think about. The IPO style isn't for everyone." The balding CSI supervisor narrowed his eyes, recovering a bit of his poise, and demanded darkly, "And who would you get to replace me? Willows? Oh, no, you can't promote one of Grissom's people - that would break up their -synergy-." "There's no need to be nasty, Conrad," Gryphon replied. "I'm thinking about -your- career too, which is more than I'm obliged to do." The Chief's mildness in the face of his vitriol rather disrupted Ecklie's line of argument. Beached, he stumbled through a vague musing about giving it some thought and left the office. When he was gone, Raven opened her eyes, turned to Gryphon, and said skeptically, "Zardon?" Gryphon shrugged. "They -are- hiring," he said. A second later, the door opened again, and Grissom and Stokes entered, looking far more pleased than Ecklie had. TUESDAY, DECEMBER 1, 2409 The last thing Sara Sidle remembered, she was sitting on a hard, cold stone bench in the Mega-City One Hall of Justice on Zardon. She'd only closed her (hot, burning) eyes for a second, to rest them. Barely any time had passed, maybe a minute, probably less than that - - but when she opened them, she was in bed, and the light was much less harsh than the industrial lighting of the Hall of Justice. The room was silent and warm, not the echoing coolness of the Hall's marble corridors, and there was no watery rustle of a fountain nearby. With a confused sound, she sat up, pulling free of the covers, and looked around. For a second she was completely at a loss to identify the room in which she found herself. After that second had passed, she felt vaguely stupid to realize that it was her own bedroom, in her apartment on the Avenue Queen Shiva in Salutown. How the hell did I get here? she wondered. She looked around the room. The clock on her bedside stand told her it was 2:30; the sunlight coming through the several-inch gap in the bedroom curtains, filling the room with cheery afternoon light, told her which 2:30 it had to be. Her clothes were folded in a neat stack on top of her dresser; at the foot of the dresser stood her field kit, with her holstered sidearm sitting on top of it. Sara looked at the clock again, and noticed next to it a small sheet of paper. She picked it up and took a few moments, with her brain still getting up to speed, to decipher the scrawled handwriting on it: SARA - GRISSOM HAS YOUR REPORT. CASEBREAKER. OUTSTANDING WORK. TAKE THE DAY OFF. --G. P.S. YOU OWE WARRICK cr25. She blinked at the note as her mind put the rest of the pieces together. She'd been sitting next to the Chief when she closed her eyes to rest them for a second, and here she was at home with a note apparently written by him in her hand. The rest of it wasn't hard to sort out, but - - her eyes darted to the stack of folded clothes again, then back to the note. She turned it over to find more writing on the back. P.P.S. NO, CATH UNDRESSED YOU. Sara shook her head, chuckling, then put the note down and got out of bed. She felt stiff, the kind of pleasant stiffness that comes of having slept so soundly as to have been pretty well immobile for the last several hours. She pulled a robe on over her pajamas, yawned, and went into the kitchen. It had suddenly occurred to her, now that she was upright, that she'd had nothing to eat but Zardon vending-machine snacks for four days, and she was consequently ravenous. Alas, the dining prospects in her kitchen, if she remembered correctly, were dishearteningly poor. Her most recent foray into vegetarianism had already begun petering out before this assignment came along - becoming a vegetarian by choice was much harder for Salusians, who weren't all that far descended from carnivorous predators, than it was for humans with their omnivorous primate forebears - and she hadn't yet mustered the heart to give up on it and go shopping for real food again. She'd just about resigned herself to scarfing down the last of the gallon tub of yogurt in the fridge, then somehow preparing herself to face the world at least enough to go down to the corner market and buy a nice, plump belgad roast, when she noticed something on her kitchen table that hadn't been there before. Actually, three somethings. One, the one that had caught her attention first, was a potted plant - a Christmas cactus, just beginning to bud. There was a card tucked into a little plastic fork stuck into the potting soil; Sara removed the fork from the pot, took the card out from between its tines, and unfolded it. Inside were two words, forming a message both straightforward and cryptic at the same time: "From Grissom." "Hm," she said, then put the card down and turned her attention to the other two items. These were both sheets of paper. The top one was an elaborately printed coupon entitling the bearer to stick Nick Stokes with the next tedious chore to come along on the night shift at the IPO crime lab - courtesy of Greg Sanders and his laserjet printer, no doubt. The other was another handwritten note, which appeared to have come from the same pad as the one left by her bed. This one was much more elaborate and much more neatly lettered, and featured a nice scrollwork border that appeared to have been done with a ballpoint pen around the words: Celestial Pizza Special Offer ANYTHING YOU WANT, DELIVERED Cheap As Free above a telephone number with an exchange she didn't recognize. She looked thoughtfully at it for a second, then went to the phone and dialed. "Celestial Pizza!" a cheerful young woman's voice answered after two rings. "This is Layna, can I help you?" "Uh, hi," Sara said. "I've, uh... got this coupon... I think... " "You're Sara Sidle from the New Avalon crime lab?" the pizza girl said. "Uh... yeah," replied a surprised Sara. "How did you - wait, 'the New Avalon crime lab'? Where are -you-?" "We happen to be the finest pizza establishment in the Bajor-B'hava'el system, CSI Sidle," Layna said proudly. "But don't worry about a thing. We've got a -hell- of a delivery driver. What can I get you?" Sara looked at the phone for a second, then put it back to her head and said, "Um... I'll have a large thick-crust pizza with extra cheese, green peppers, and... oh, the hell with it, pepperoni, hamburger, sausage, and do you have Salusian bacon?" "Ma'am, if somebody likes to put it on pizza, we've got it here," Layna replied. "We even do gravel sometimes, for a Firekkan kid up at the school." "I'll pass on the gravel, but I'd kill for some good Salusian bacon right about now." "Best you can get, straight from the Saenar Smokehouse Company," said Layna. "Anything else?" "No, thanks," Sara said. "OK, then. You'll have it in about... oh... 20 minutes. Thanks for calling Celestial Pizza!" Sara thanked her again, hung up the phone, and went to get a quick shower before the delivery driver showed up. Grissom was crouched in the corner of his office feeding his pet when Gryphon came in. "Is he here?" Grissom asked, tossing a last strip of sliced beef into the enclosure. Gryphon nodded. "Figured we'd use the layout room." "Sure. Just let me wash my hands," Grissom said, rising. Gryphon came into the office, hands in his trouser pockets, and looked into the enclosure at Grissom's pet. A beetle with a carapace striped in alternating bands of black and bright red would have been eye-catching enough at something like a normal size. This beetle, being about the size of a medium-size dog, was especially arresting, even without its wickedly pointed, serrated, foot-long mandibles that looked as if they were made of metal. "Jeez, Gil, that's a big bug," he remarked. "If it should get loose someday... " "Don't worry," Grissom said as he washed his hands in the sink in the corner. "Ragolian saber beetles never attack anything bigger than they are. If it were a full-size specimen rather than a dwarf, that would be a different story, but then again, I couldn't keep one of those in my office. They average about 2,500 pounds." Gryphon whistled. "I take it back. -That's- a big bug." Grissom smiled. "Ragol is an entomologist's paradise," he said, and they left the office together. In the layout room, a conference-room-like space down the hall with a nifty lighted table, they found a man waiting for them. He was a slender, ageless-looking human of Asian descent, dressed in a long black coat over black pants and a high-collared white shirt, and he had short black hair and a neatly trimmed vandyke beard. There was a visitor's pass clipped to the lapel of his coat. He turned from his examination of one of the framed photographs on the wall when they entered and inclined his head. "Gryphon," he said. "Good to see you." "Thanks for coming, Ghost," Gryphon said, shaking the man's hand. "I don't believe you've met? This is Gil Grissom, night shift supervisor for our crime scene investigators. Gil, Brother Ghost of the Holy Order of St. Ignatius the Defender." "Just 'Ghost' is fine," said Ghost, shaking Grissom's hand. "Good to meet you, Mr. Grissom. How can I help?" Before Gryphon could say anything, Grissom went straight for the jugular: "You can tell us which of your brethren has gone on a killing spree." Ghost raised his eyebrows slightly, which Gryphon knew was a show of considerable emotion from him. "I'm not sure I understand what you're implying," he said evenly. "Well, then let me show you," Grissom said. He put down the two photos Nick Stokes had put on his desk the day before and explained their significance, then met Ghost's eyes and said, "So either one of the Ignatine Order is doing this, or someone with access to your armory." Ghost regarded him for a moment, then said calmly, "No brother of our house would do things this way... but I think I know who it is you're looking for." Grissom flipped open the file Sara had worked so hard to dig up on Zardon. "Is this his name?" he asked. Ghost's eyes flicked to the page, then back to Grissom's face. "So. You know already. Why are you asking me?" "We know who he is, Brother Ghost, and we're working on where," Grissom said. "What I want from you is -what-, and -why-." "I can tell you what, though it's a long story," Ghost said. "Why is harder. Does anyone know anyone else's whys? You may think you know why Gryphon here does what he does, but you can really only guess. No man can know another's heart." Grissom considered that, then said, "I have a suspicion that the why in this case is connected to the what... so let's start there." Ghost looked back at him for a moment, then nodded. Sara really had intended to take the day off, but she couldn't bring herself to do it. The way she figured it, she'd already -had- a day off, having slept straight through Monday - by her calculations, she'd fallen asleep just about when her shift would have been starting. So, after scarfing down the best pizza of her entire life, spending a half-hour or so basking in repletion, and then feeling the first faint twinges of guilt, she dressed and went to work. Within six hours, she'd find herself really wishing she'd just gone back to bed. She entered the bullpen to greeting sounds from Nick Stokes and Warrick Brown, who looked like they were both filing reports. "Fellas," she said, putting her cactus on her desk. Then she hung up her coat and hat (Where'd I get this hat? she wondered - it'd been by the door and she'd sort of grabbed it without thinking on her way out) and sat down. "So - fill me in," she said. "About?" Nick asked. "The -case-," Sara said. "You guys must have done -something- while I was groveling by hand through that excuse for a database on Zardon." "Oh, that. Not much going on with that," Nick said. "Yeah, we were waiting for you," Warrick agreed. "Cath took some time off, and Warrick had to recover from his weekend," Nick noted. Before Sara could get fed up enough to start throwing pencils at them, Warrick threw in a piece of actual news: "Gris got the Lens." "Yeah, and Ecklie got so mad that he didn't, he threatened to quit," Nick added. "Changed his mind, though. Unfortunately," Warrick grumped. Sara blinked at them both in disbelief. "... You're still yanking me." "Not about that part," Nick said, shaking his head earnestly. "See what happens when you go on vacation?" Warrick asked. Sara threw a pencil at him. "What's this I hear about your weekend, Warrick?" she asked, good humor restored by that act of simple, harmless revenge. "And why do I owe you 25 bucks?" "Oh, I filled in for you with the Chief on Saturday," said Warrick offhandedly. He'd expected to get at least a bit of a laugh out of her with that mental image, and so was kind of surprised to see her face suddenly go blank and ashen. "... What?" "... ohmygod," Sara murmured, almost inaudibly. Nick stared at her for a second, then started laughing uncontrollably. That snapped her out of her momentary catatonia; flushing, primary ears pinning back, she turned on him. "What the hell's so funny?" she demanded. "I'm sorry, Sara, really I am," he said, wiping tears from his eyes. "It's just - you didn't even -think- of it until -now-? I mean, the guy went to Zardon to -get- you." "I could barely remember my own name by then, Nick," Sara said, "much less any plans I might've had for Saturday." "He didn't mention it?" "No. Not a word. Just asked me what I'd found out, and then... I fell asleep." She looked pensive for a moment, then asked, "Do... you think he's upset?" Warrick made his "oh, please" face. "Sara," he said, "the man went to Zardon, picked you up, and carried you through the Stargate." Sara raised both eyebrows. "... Really?" Warrick nodded. "Cath told me. She gave him a hand getting you home." She reddened slightly. "Uh, yeah, I know that part already." Then she lapsed into thought for a few seconds, seemed to shake herself out of the reverie, and asked Warrick, "So you went to the game with Gr... uh... the Chief?" Warrick nodded. "Razors 3, Senators 2, in OT. You missed a hell of a game." Sara shook her head in disbelief. "You went on my date." "Well, it wasn't a -date- exactly," Warrick said. "I had to pay for my own food, and all I got was a kiss on the cheek. ... I'm kidding about that last part," he added, seeing her face start to slip into its "baffled" look again. "That's what you owe me 25 credits for, by the way. If you hadn't bailed on the guy, I would've done mac 'n cheese in my humble abode instead of the the porterhouse at Allard's." He grinned to let her know he was kidding, and she recovered from her momentary blank-out and smiled. "So, dinner and a game with the Chief. Is he a fun date?" she asked playfully. "I think so," Warrick said. "We went back to my place after the game, knocked back a couple, watched 'Sink the Bismarck!' on the widescreen. Talked a lot. I'd never really talked with him before. He's interesting. Not like you'd expect a guy his age to be. I mean, you'd figure he's sort of seen it all, done it all, he'd be kind of... -jaded-, you know? But he's not like that at all." Sara folded her hands in front of her and propped her chin on them, smiling across their facing desks at him. "So what did you guys talk about?" "Oh, you know... guy stuff. Our favorite bands. Girls we like. The Matrix." Warrick shrugged. "Like I say, I was surprised. I mean, I met him when I first came to work here and I've worked with him on a couple cases, before you joined the department, but this was the first time I ever just hung out with him. He's a really... regular guy." "Who's that, Warrick?" Catherine Willows asked as she breezed into the bullpen. "The Chief," Warrick replied, and Catherine smiled. "Oh, yeah. He's a sweetheart. Any girl who'd let him get away? -Complete- loser," she said with a dismissive gesture. "How was your trip, Sara?" "Hellish," Sara replied after a brief hesitation, entirely uncertain whether to take offense at the blonde's previous remark. She was saved from having to consider it for long by the arrival of still another co-worker. "Hey, Sara," said Greg Sanders as he sloped into the bullpen, looking cheerful. "See you made it off Zardon alive. Did you get the coupon I made you?" Sara smiled. "I did, yes," she said. "Thanks, Greg. I'm sure that'll come in handy sometime," she added, casting a brief, amused look at Nick Stokes, who raised an eyebrow but said nothing. Greg grinned. "All part of the service," he said. "Oh, and I see Gris got you... a cactus. Sweet. Must be as close as he can get to apologizing for the nightmare assignment. Either that or he's trying to tell you that he thinks you're pretty, but prickly." "Actually, Greg, the Christmas cactus is not a true cactus," said Grissom's didactic voice from right behind the Dantrovian lab tech, making him wince. "(Dvhil, how does he DO that?!)" Greg muttered almost inaudibly, forcing Sara to stifle a giggle. "I just got a call from Chief Inspector Brass," Grissom went on as if Greg hadn't said anything. "His people have located our suspect." "I'm coming with you," Sara said, standing and grabbing her coat and hat. "Hello, Sara," Grissom said in a tone that carried rather less surprise than his words. "Don't you have today off?" "I spent three days looking up this guy's name. I'm coming with you," she said again. "OK... let's go," Grissom agreed placidly. "The rest of you... don't break anything." "Grissom?" Sara asked as she climbed into the passenger seat of her supervisor's company truck. "Mm?" Grissom replied. "... What were you thinking?" "That I wanted the job done right," Grissom replied without hesitation. Then, while she was absorbing that with her customary thoughtful frown, he half-smiled and added offhandedly, "That's a nice hat, by the way." "... thank you," Sara replied, thrown entirely off her mental stride. "You're welcome," Grissom said politely. They drove uptown in silence, Grissom consulting the navigation system built into the dash now and then as they got further off the beaten track. They were headed through the corner of Claremont into Hell's Kitchen - no big surprise there. As he hand-over-handed around one corner, the dark green gem on his wrist twinkled at Sara. "Congrats on that, by the way," she said. Grissom looked for a moment like he didn't know what she was talking about, then glanced at his Lens and smiled. "Thanks," he said. "I'm still not sure what I did to earn it." "You're good at your job," Sara said. "Valuable. It shows how much Gryphon trusts you." "Maybe. But all I really do is let you guys do your jobs," Grissom pointed out. She put a hand on his shoulder and smiled. "That's a rare talent," she assured him. Grissom gave her a you're-my-favorite-student sort of smile and pulled the truck to the curb. "Here we are," he said. "Gil. Sara," said Chief Inspector Brass. "Here's the deal. Our guy is in the room at the end of the hall on the top floor, next to the fire escape." "Murder Central," Sara observed. "Right," Brass agreed, nodding. "It's pretty close quarters up there, so we're going to do this with a small group." He indicated the two uniformed patrol officers with him. "Garrity, Hancock, and I will secure the room, and then you two can come in and talk to him. OK?" Grissom nodded. "You're the cop, Jim," he said with an accommodating smile. "OK," said Brass. He drew his weapon, checked it, and then nodded to the two uniformed cops. "Let's go." It all went wrong very quickly, even for an operation of its type, where everything always happens fast. The bigger of the two uniforms, Hancock, kicked in the door. Smaller, wiry Garrity barged into the room first, her weapon at the ready; then Brass, then Hancock bringing up the rear, all shouting that they were police and that the occupants of the room should give up. Then there was a lot of thumping, crashing, and yelling, and then there was a gunshot - and Grissom, without really thinking it through, ran up the hall, Sara hot on his heels. "Jim?" Grissom called. "Jim!" He rounded the corner into the room and saw the two uniformed cops and Brass all sprawled in different uncomfortable-looking positions - one draped over the cheap desk in the corner, one half on, half off the bed, Brass laid out on the floor near the window. At the foot of the bed stood a very large man in a dark coat, his back to the door. Grissom wasn't really sure how the next couple of seconds went, but when time slowed to a comprehensible rate again, he had a gun pointed at his forehead, and so did Sara - one in each of the big man's hands. The automatic in his right was trained on Grissom, who had made it most of the way across the room to Brass; the revolver in his left was covering Sara at the door. Sara froze, all the color draining from her face, her primary ears standing stiffly straight up, as she looked down a barrel that, from her perspective, resembled a rifled sewer pipe. Though she carried a weapon and was certified in its use, hers wasn't what the IPO called a combat-probable job. She'd never had a weapon pointed at her before. She forced herself to keep her eyes open and not flinch, knowing that any sudden movement might make the man fire - and then she heard Grissom speak, his voice so calm and placid that it had an instant soothing effect on her, slowing her hammering heart a bit. She was still in mortal terror, but at least she found it easier to keep still and wait for events to unfold now. What Grissom said was, "You don't really want to do that, do you, Mr. Depew?" The gunman was the one to flinch, at the sound of his name. Indeed, he almost recoiled; then he mastered his surprise and demanded hoarsely, "How do you know my name?" "We know quite a few things about you," Grissom replied mildly. "Your name; where you were born; pieces of what happened to you after that. The Zardons think you're dead," he added in a conversational tone. "It took Sara here more than three straight days to track your birth record down. She's very dedicated." Grissom's eyes took on a new intensity as he gazed steadily at the man, completely ignoring the weapon in his own face, and added, "She's not your enemy and you don't want to hurt her." "I'm sorry about this," the man Grissom had called Depew said. "You're right, I don't want to hurt -either- of you - but I can't let you stop me." "And I can't let you continue," Grissom observed. "Put down the guns. At least put down your revolver and let Sara go. She can't hurt you. She's a scientist, not a warrior." Despite her situation, some part of Sara Sidle's mind picked up on what an odd statement that was. Her eyes flicked toward Grissom, but then her attention was inexorably recaptured by the hypnotic eye of the weapon aimed at her head. Depew hesitated. "I... " he said, then trailed off, uncertain. "I don't want to draw my weapon, Mr. Depew," Grissom said calmly, a little sadly, with just a hint of a plea in his tone. "If you let this situation escalate that far, it will end very badly." On the face of it, that seemed like a pretty rich statement for a man with his hands open at his sides, his gun still on his belt, and the muzzle of a heavy automatic five inches from his forehead. A lot of people would have laughed. Depew knew better. The most reliable physiological indicators of mortal fear in a humanized Salusian are the primary ears, he reminded himself, drawing on deeply-ingrained rote programming. They stand up straight, stiff, and twitch at the tips. Like hers. This guy's primaries are -relaxed-. Hell, one of them isn't even listening to me. And his eyes... Slowly, Depew lowered his weapons, first the revolver, then the automatic, and let them both thump to the floor. Sara Sidle nearly followed them, sagging back against the doorframe with the release of the watchspring tension inside her. Grissom ignored the gunman for the moment, crossing to her and taking her upper arms in his hands. "Sara? Are you all right?" he asked. "Fine. I'm fine," she replied, the words more like sobs. She felt ashamed of herself, of the tears she felt running down her face, the way her hands trembled as she grabbed hold of his elbows, the weakness in her knees. About all she could say for herself was that she'd kept control of her bladder. "It's OK," Grissom said, hugging her and stroking the back of her head, but he didn't say exactly -what- was OK. Under the circumstances, she didn't really care. A few seconds later, a contingent of bluesuiters and the Chief arrived to take charge of Mr. Depew, who just stood there slackly and let them take him in. INTERNATIONAL POLICE ORGANIZATION CASE No. 2409-1194284c7 etc. (see Appendix for listing of related cases) STATEMENT OF SUSPECT DEPEW, Geoffrey NMI December 1, 2409 21:19 AST Interview Room 1 IPO HQ, New Avalon INTERVIEWING OFFICER: HUTCHINS, Benjamin D. (Chief) ALSO PRESENT: GRISSOM, Giol'bertis NMI (SA1) BRASS, James C. (Chief Inspector, NAPD) RAVEN, NFI NMI (SA11) My name - the one I was born with - was Geoff Depew. You know that already. I haven't actually used it in a long time. I don't know where I come from - I'm not even sure how old I really am, when you get down to it. I just know that one day when I was very small, my parents weren't there, and I was being taken away. I was put into an orphanage - some corporate place. I don't even know what planet it was on. One of the kids there was a major bully named Nathan something. We didn't use last names a lot - did it matter? We were orphans. Nathan was in control of the damn place. There were adults, but they were just as scared of him as the other kids were. And I was his personal toy whenever he felt like terrorizing me, which was often. After a while - time just blurred in there - he decided he was tired of the game, and tried to knife me. When the dust settled, he was the one with the shiv in his neck. After that, they had me moved to another facility, on another planet whose name I don't know. Turns out that one was a Big Fire recruiting station. Ever wonder why the Black Hoods are so fanatical? They've got some orphanages that are dedicated to training them from the time they're young. But I was special - something about my genetic profile, though I didn't know that then, they tracked me into a different training section. First they tested me in very, very painful ways - medical screenings, endurance tests, and some stuff that I think was just torture for the hell of it. I was too young to know what they were trying to accomplish. Then... the real experiment started. First thing was a man - Cervantes, his name was - coming to me and apologizing for the tests. [[ REF NOTE: Miguel Cervantes, a former member of Big Fire's Magnificent Ten, killed 2404.07.15 by IPO operatives during Operation Turbine. ]] They'd gone overboard, he told me. They went beyond what they were supposed to do, and he was very sorry I'd had to go through so much. But I had been very brave, and I was very special, and he wanted to talk to me about what a brave, special boy could do to save the galaxy from itself. Oh, looking back I see it - he pressed every single button I had - Nathan, my parents, all of it. He made me feel good, like he actually cared about me. But, he said, before I could do anything to help save the galaxy, I had to go to school. Think what you have to do with a kid to turn him into an assassin. They taught me languages, social skills, infiltration, B&E, stealth, hand-to-hand, and gun skills. Oh, and the indoctrination into Big Fire's philosophy. I believed it. I was going to be one of the rulers of the galaxy someday. I had the talent, I would have the skills, and it would be glorious. Instead of someone's preferred torture toy, the others treated me with respect. There were seven in my training cadre for assassins: six others and me. I was the only one to make it all the way through the final exam. Which was a last man standing event. One of us would walk out alive. It was me. I was one of the up-and-coming, the elite. Someday, I was told, I would directly report to one of the Magnificent Ten. Perhaps if I was lucky, or someone else wasn't lucky, I would become one of the Magnificent Ten, and the galaxy would be my responsibility. I would be like a god. There was just one more thing I had to do before I could have the potential to ascend to that level. They took me back to the lab where they'd done all those initial tests, and implanted an experimental bioweapon they'd hijacked out of some illegal research program on Zardon. It made me stronger, faster, tougher - and they told me I'd keep getting more and more powerful as long as I did my job. After that, they dispatched me to do clean-up. Five police officers getting too close to Big Fire operations. Two judges who'd put Big Fire leaders in jail. One mayor for ordering a clean-up of the city infrastructure to excise Big Fire. And one woman whose only crime was seeing too much. /--- Depew slipped into the apartment carefully, having disabled the relatively minimal security on the apartment window without breaking stride. He took a moment to canvass the apartment, disabling the phone without breaking it. Then he stepped into the bedroom. The woman - Linda was the name in the dossier - was asleep. This would be easy. Much easier than the targ trainer on Klinzhai Prime. He took a step forward, drawing an automatic pistol from a holster under his jacket. He thumbed off the safety and pointed the gun at her head. For some reason, that woke her up. She sat up fast, staring at the large man in her room pointing a large gun at her. To her benefit, she did not scream; she just said, in a small, scared voice, "Who are you?" "My name isn't important," Depew replied, not even sure why he was b othering to answer. "I'm here to insure your silence in a matter. Big Fire sent me." "Oh God." She started to cry, tears rolling down her cheeks. "My God. Please... I'm just a waitress, I just saw something, I don't even know what it was. Please don't kill me. Wait, wait.." She rolled over and pulled a drawer out of her night table, held it out to him. It was filled with cash and coins. "It's all I have. I wanted... I wanted to buy a farm. I wanted to do something with my life other than just be a waitress. Take it, please, and let me live. I... I just want to live." Geoff Depew had killed men in their sleep, and shot one man to death in his bathroom. None of that mattered at all at this moment. This was someone that all his training said he should protect, so that she could serve Big Fire - except he had orders to the contrary, and orders came first. In his mind, someone entered that had never been there before: doubt. He took a deep breath and steadied his grip. "This is my job," he said. "For the good of the galaxy and Big Fire." She stared at him, her panicked face going eerily, unnaturally calm. After a few moments, she nodded, then put back the drawer and lay down in her bed. "I know," she said softly. "I just... had to try. I'm ready now." Depew walked around the bed and pointed his gun at her forehead, and then said something he had never said before in his life: "I'm sorry." "I forgive you," she replied, and closed her eyes. He fired. Depew didn't remember getting back to his safehouse, nor anything else he might have done that night. He knew he'd followed evasion protocol - not doing so would have been as impossible as neglecting to breathe - but other than that, he had little to go on when trying to retrace his steps later. The next morning, he cleaned up the mess he'd made of his bathroom, then showered. His stomach was still sour, and he did not eat breakfast. He just sat on his bed contemplating his guns. The phone rang. "Yes? Yes, I'll be there." Another mission. His handler was a flabby man called Grocer. Grocer was an ex-Q-Boss relegated to desk work by the lingering effects of a nasty stomach wound, as a result of which he always looked constipated and always had a small crust of Maalox in the corner of his mouth. "Here's your new assignment," Grocer said, sounding annoyed. Behind Depew, the door swung shut, soundproofing the room. (Grocer also claimed to have very sensitive hearing.) A folder wrapped in what appeared to be red cellophane slid across the handler's desk. Depew picked it up, then slit it with a special knife. He opened it to see a face from his past. "These are the true stories of the Lovely Angels, trouble consultants for the Worlds Welfare Works Association. Only the names have been changed to protect the guilty. Kei Morgan. Yuri Daniels. The Lovely Angels - the top 3WA team, handling the toughest cases." A four-year-old gazing at a raven-haired woman on a screen, wondering if he'd ever meet her and if she'd like him the way he liked her if they did. "Erase Yuri Daniels. She's burned one of our ops too many. Genya wants an example made." "Are you fucking kidding me, Grocer?" Depew demanded, slapping the folder down on his handler's desk. "This is an Expert of Justice. Red Mask himself went up against her last year and damn near came home in a box. I'm good, but I'm not that good." "Cervantes thinks you are," Grocer shot back. Damn, thought Depew. Didn't work. OK, another tack. "I just handled a cleanup. Get someone else to do it, Grocer. I deserve downtime." He felt sick - he'd never killed a woman before, and then Linda, and now Yuri Daniels? He couldn't do it. "You will do this, Depew. Alliegiance or Death! Absolute allegiance! This came down from Cervantes himself - he wants you to do it." Grocer smiled coldly. "This is your graduation exercise, boy." For twenty seconds, Geoff Depew wrestled with himself. On the twenty-first, he gave up. "No. Not this one. I won't." Grocer made a sickly noise that might have been a laugh. "It's death for you, then." He reached for the phone. Depew hadn't realized he'd drawn until Grocer's body hit the floor. Instinct had hit hard, and looking at the expression on the dead agent's face, it was hard to tell which of them was more surprised by the development. Depew glanced around, heard nothing, then quickly searched checked Grocer's desk. There it was - the envelope containing his mission documents. Fake ID, travel documents... cash. He hunted around until he found the button under Grocer's desk that unlocked the door, then slipped into the corridor and shut the door behind him, tucking the envelope and the mission folder into his coat. Wary for trouble, he kept a hand near his holster until he'd had a chance to look around. No alarms, no running guards, nothing. Grocer's soundproofing had served a purpose wholly unexpected by its owner. Depew squared himself away, smoothed his hair down, and straightened his tie. Then he went through the vestibule to the outer office and brusquely told his handler's secretary, "Grocer doesn't want to be disturbed." He was off the planet before they realized what he'd done. ---/ I ran. I had my guns, some cash, and some clothes, and I got out of that base and called the cops on it, and I ran. And got lost. There was.. nothing else. My mission was to not get killed. That was my purpose now. But it wasn't enough. I needed a better purpose. I ended up hopping on a freighter, working for transport. I heard about some people who might be able to help me, and ended up on this place called Barsaan. I was half-delirious at this point - no sleep, barely eating, just the image of Linda every time I closed my eyes. I wandered away from the spaceport, and no one seemed to miss me. Ended up at the front gate of the Abbey of St. Ignatius, and knocked on it. I must have looked a sight the way I was. The next thing I remember I was lying on a bed, and there was a small, elderly man there who I was convinced could kick my ass six times before I got a single shot off. (Knowing what I know now? Eight times.) Father Talesio had tended me himself, I was told later. In my delirious state, part of my story had come out. When I woke up, he said to me, "And why have you come to our Order, Mr. Depew?" "I seek only the peace of my soul. A peace no amount of blood money can win," was my reply. "Be welcome among the Order of Saint Ignatius, then," Talesio said. And they took me in. For two years, they taught me, trained me - gave me a place where I belonged again and faith in my ability to do something good with myself. But I still couldn't take the final step and truly believe. Catholic doctrine said that what I had done was killing for the wrong reasons - I killed for a heresy, putting Big Fire above God, and for that I was damned. Could I be damned and still a priest? Could God forgive me for what I had done? And every night I dreamt of Linda. "I was in training - second-level gun kata - with the order's master of arms, Brother Errol Partridge, when a man glided into the room and bid me to cease. His name was Ghost. I'd heard of him, but never seen him before. He was one of the Tetragrammaton, like Brother Partridge, and I had heard he was the best of the four. He took me to the Abbot's office. "You have done well in your training," he told me, "but I do not think what you seek can be found in a vocation with the Church. Not all are suited to a life serving God. You should go." "Must I go?" I asked, hoping that I wasn't being expelled. "No. But I think it wisest you go. I do not know if what we can do for you is what you truly need. But go with our blessing, and return if you can, and know you are welcome here." Ghost led me to the doors of the Abbey, and gave me my guns and the holsters - a present and a reminder of my goals, he told me - and then we left. He dropped me off and bid me take my steps toward redemption. So for three years, I've been hunting Big Fire, destroying their nests, ruining their plans, taking their money, and paying recompense to the families of the men I killed. And there's a farm on Quintana Roo that was about to undergo foreclosure, and then was saved by an anonymous payment, and sometimes gets equipment or supplies, and the owner has no idea who is doing it. That's my payment for Linda. There. You know it all now. An assassin's life and search for redemption, all in fifteen minutes. ... I'm tired. Is there somewhere I can rest? ---- END OF STATEMENT Gryphon sat, his face unreadable, looking at the haggard man in the prisoner's coverall for a few moments. Then he glanced to his left, at Grissom, with an expression that said, "Any questions?" "Mr. Depew," Grissom said, "according to the birth record my associate Sara Sidle found on you, you were born in 2384, in Mega-City One on Zardon. You don't remember anything about that?" "No. Like I said, I barely remember anything before the orphanage. I guess that means I'm technically a Zardon citizen, then." He chuckled wryly. "At least the execution will be fast." "You've committed no crimes in Zardon jurisdiction that we know of, Mr. Depew," Gryphon told him. "If you were to be prosecuted, it'd be under the laws of the Republic of Zeta Cygni. Mind you, given the array of crimes you've just confessed to, you'd still stand a fair chance of getting the death penalty. There are extenuating circumstances, but even if you dodged the firing squad, you'd never see the light of day again." "Either way - in prison until the end of my natural life, or just killed by a Big Fire member in prison who was paid to kill me." Depew regarded Gryphon with eyes that the older man would have called dead - or perhaps just resigned. "Unless, of course, something else happens," Gryphon said thoughtfully. Rather than clarify that remark, he tilted his head and said, "You're sizing us up right now, aren't you? Trying to decide whether you could incapacitate the four of us and get out of the building alive." "Only as a mental exercise," Depew replied. "I do it all the time, it's instinctive. Part of my training. I know I couldn't get out of this room alive, much less the building." "How do you gauge that kind of thing?" Gryphon asked. He figured the answer would him some insight into how far they might have to go, and if the distance was worth the trip. "It's a set of things I see when I look at someone. Stance, build, the way they hold their head and hands. You... well, even if your reputation didn't precede you, I can see how dangerous you are. I might be able to stop you long enough to escape, but I'd never put you down permanently, not unarmed. And even if I managed it, I'd have to deal with these two -and- the girl by the door, who is much more than she seems. I'd give myself about even odds of taking any one of you, maybe two, but not all four." "Define 'taking' us." "Taking you down in a way that allows me to continue my mission without interference. Mission parameters would define more than that - if it was a 'kill anyone you encounter', you'd be able to tell and the rules change completely, and the chances shift. You know what I'm talking about. You can judge someone's skill just by looking at them stand and breathe." "Do you want to kill me?" "No. You're not with Big Fire." The statement was curt, sharp, like a slamming door. Gryphon nodded, then thumbed through the report in front of him. "My colleague MegaZone has had an eye on your... unorthodox philanthropy... for a couple of years now," he noted. "He dropped me an email about it an hour ago - don't ask how he knew I'd need it, he just does that kind of thing. Anyway, it's commendable of you, if still technically illegal." "It's debt. I owe those people for taking someone away from them." "You think you can buy forgiveness?" "No. The one person that keeps me awake at night forgave me already. The rest of them... their families need something to keep them going, and that's all I can do." "Bribing people? Seems a bit low," Brass put in. "What's your real goal?" "I want to destroy Big Fire." Gryphon chuckled darkly. "You don't get it, do you? You really have no idea what you're doing. You have a goal, but you don't know how much more there is to do than what you're doing." "I have my mission. I have my training. I know what I have to do." Depew started to get out of the chair. "But you don't know the underlying reason, do you?" Grissom hadn't spoken in long enough that Brass, sitting on the other side of Gryphon, glanced sharply over, then winced and reapplied his ice pack to the back of his head. The bright spot in the bungled arrest of this suspect was that he hadn't shot anyone; he'd taken out the three cops by hand, apparently out of a deliberate desire not to kill them. The one gunshot Grissom had heard came from Brass's weapon, and went harmlessly into an endtable. "You don't understand it," Grissom went on, his voice as calm as his face. "Let me tell you what you're doing. You're looking for one of two things. Either death, so you don't have to hurt anymore... or people who understand you and are willing to accept you for and despite what you are, so that you don't feel so alone. You want to be part of something so badly - you always have. That's why you were vulnerable to what Cervantes said, that's why you went to the Ignatines, and that's why you didn't kill Sara and me." Brass stared at Grissom - that was quite a speech, coming from a man as normally taciturn as the crime scene supervisor - but Gryphon just smiled the smile of a man who sees things unfolding as they're meant to. Depew sat back down, looked at Grissom, and said nothing at all. "Mr. Depew," Gryphon said after a few moments, "there's someone I want you to talk to." He reached into the inside pocket of his beat-up old green Army jacket, took out a data chit, and slid it across the table. "Go up to the fifteenth floor, find a man named Kurt Wagner, and give him this. At this time, you remain in IPO custody, which means that unless you're in the bathroom, someone is with you at all times." Depew looked at the blank piece of circuitry, and then at the man who gave it to him, then stood, his face wearing a mixture of confusion and faint, sputtering hope. "Dismissed," Gryphon said, and Depew, spurred by years of training, saluted and went to the door. Then, his hand on the knob, he hesitated and turned back to the table. "Mr. Grissom?" he said. Grissom looked up. "Yes, Mr. Depew?" Depew stood looking silently at him for a moment, as if groping for words. Then he glanced at the mirror along the back wall of the room, knowing who would be behind it, before returning his gaze to Grissom and saying hesitantly, "I'm... sorry I threatened your friend." Grissom nodded solemnly. "I am too," he said. Depew held eye contact with him for a moment longer, then returned the nod, turned, and left the room. "Well," said Brass after the interview room door closed behind the departing suspect, "that was weird." He turned to Gryphon. "So you're just gonna let him walk?" Gryphon shook his head, smiling with what seemed to Brass like a sort of dark satisfaction. "Oh, no, Chief Inspector," he said. "Geoffrey Depew's not walking away from anything. What I just handed him is his -sentence-." Gil Grissom looked all over the tenth floor without any success, then returned to his office to find that which he sought waiting for him there. "... You're feeding my beetle," he said with some surprise from the doorway. Sara finished that task, straightened up, and went to the sink to wash her hands. "Yeah, well," she said over her shoulder, "I figure, after staring death in the face, it's stupid to be squeamish about handling raw meat." Her tone was light and wry, but the lightness was forced. Grissom could read her body language from across the room, knew that she was still a very upset woman. He entered the office, crossed to his desk, and half-sat on the corner of it. "Sara," he said, "I'm sorry." That got her attention. Grissom was notoriously bad at apologies, so much so that everyone in the lab had recognized instantly what the significance was of the plant she'd brought to work with her today. He always found some way to express his remorse when he felt he'd done something wrong, but that expression was almost never as direct as just coming out and saying it. Sara dried her hands and turned to face him, leaning back against the sink, arms folded. "What for?" she asked. "I shouldn't have gone into that hotel room," Grissom said. "It was against policy, and it was stupid. As a CSI, I had no business trying to back up Brass when he got into trouble. I should have gone back to the car and called for backup. Instead, I ran into that room, and that action almost got you killed. I'm sorry." Sara shook her head. "I didn't have to go in there either. I know the policy too, and I violated it just as much as you did." "You were following me," Grissom said. "It was still my choice," Sara insisted. Grissom opened his mouth to argue, then stopped, took off his glasses, put them down on his desk, and rubbed the bridge of his nose between thumb and forefinger. "Sara... " he said. "I don't apologize very often. Certainly not as often as I should. So when I do... " He raised his eyes to hers and flashed a tired version of his odd, disarming smile. "Would you please just let me?" Sara looked at him in disbelief for a moment. Then she made a sound that was more cough than laugh, followed by another more laugh than cough; and then, for a few seconds, the two Salusian investigators laughed at death together. Then Sara crossed the office, paused by Grissom briefly to put her left hand on his left shoulder. They stood like that for a few seconds, facing in opposite directions, in contact and yet each alone with his or her own thoughts. The moment passed; she patted his shoulder a couple of times and moved on. "I'm taking tomorrow off," she said as she passed smiling through the door. Grissom put his glasses back on, turned to watch her walk off down the glass-walled hallway, and chuckled. "You do that," he said. "Did I hear that right?" Nick Stokes inquired as Sara squared away her desk and shrugged into her blue woolen peajacket. "You're taking a day off? On -purpose-?" "That's right," she replied. Then, looking around at the shocked, expectant faces of all three of her fellow criminalists, she sighed. "Come on, you guys, it's not -that- shocking." "But what are we going to -do-?" Nick demanded, looking panicked. "Yeah, I mean, it's not like the rest of us actually -work-," Warrick Brown noted, putting his feet up on his desk and folding his arms. "It's all -you-." "My God, Sara, think of the children!" pleaded Catherine Willows. Sara laughed. "I'll miss you guys too. Don't give away my desk." She shouldered her battered canvas briefcase and plopped her hat on her head. "I'll be back on Thursday." Her co-workers smilingly bade her farewell as she turned and headed for the bullpen door - only to pull up short, a puzzled look on her face, as she found her path blocked by a grim-faced Greg Sanders. "You don't think you're going to get away with that, do you, Sidle?" Greg said sternly. Sara looked genuinely at a loss. "What's that?" "Taking that book of tire impressions with you on your 'day off'," Greg said, pointing an accusing finger at her briefcase. "Hand it over." "Greg, don't make me hurt you," said Sara, trying hard not to smile. "You always hurt the ones you love, now cough it up," Greg replied with a "c'mon c'mon" gesture. "OK, fine," Sara conceded, sighing. She hauled the book out of her briefcase and handed it to Greg, who tucked it under his arm with a magisterial air. "There," said Sara. "Happy now?" "I dunno. You're a cagey one," Greg mused, rubbing his chin with a thumb. "I might have to search you." Sara made a fist and raised it, causing Greg to cringe theatrically. "Kidding!" he protested, sliding out of her way. "Bye, you guys," Sara said, smiling. "Bye, Sara," her co-workers replied. "Have a nice day off," Greg added as she walked off down the hall. Only when she had disappeared into the elevator did he turn to the others and say, "I wonder what she's going to do." "Sit home and read," Warrick replied without hesitation. "About work," Nick added. Catherine smiled thoughtfully. "I wouldn't be so sure about that, boys," she said. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 2, 2409 The outside observation deck at the top of the Entire State Building was a cold and windy place in winter. Most people kept to the outside balconies off the Pinnacle Mall food court, one level down, which had climate control fields. There was no field on the top deck, by design. If you wanted the real top-of-the-world view, with nothing above you but the Avalon 17 transmitter mast, you had to suck it up and get cold. Thus, the day was bright and sunny, and the sky had that incredible crystalline clarity that only comes on a cold winter's day, but there was only one person up there to enjoy it. A stocky man of unremarkable height, he stood at the eastern rail looking out at the buildings and streets running down to Lake Daniels. His outline was bulked up by the thick layer of an insulated drover coat, and a maroon-and-red-striped scarf was doubled around his neck. A New Avalon Knights cap was crammed down on his head, its flimsy wool shell seeming inadequate protection against the icy wind, but he seemed content enough. Another figure emerged from the stairwell leading down into the Pinnacle Mall, then made her way to his side, leaning forward slightly against the wind. Gryphon turned, smiling, as Sara Sidle reached the rail alongside him. "Hi," he said. "Hi," she replied. She, no fool, was dressed for the occasion too, in a heavy coat that made her normally slender shape look a bit like the Michelin man and a black fur ushanka with its ear flaps pulled down. Gryphon noted the scarlet star-and-sickle badge on the front of the hat and laughed. "Where'd you get a Novaya Rodina Northern Fleet admiral's hat?" he asked. "The Internet," Sara replied. "I'm a catalog junkie." "Ah!" said Gryphon, enlightened. "Wow," Sara said, looking out at the panorama of the city. "What a view." She looked around, craning her neck to take in as much of it as she could see without actually walking to the other side of the roof. "This must look even more incredible at night." "It does," Gryphon replied thoughtfully, his gaze focused far off in the distance. Sara stood and studied his face for a few seconds, then put one mittened hand on his forearm and asked quietly, "What are you thinking?" Gryphon looked faintly embarrassed. "Well... this is going to sound kind of weird, but... it was just hitting me again that... " He paused pensively, just long enough for her to consider prompting him again, before he smiled and went on, "I -made- this city. My drive built it, my vision keeps it going, and about a third of its people work for me... whether they know it or not." Coming from almost any other man, Sara would have taken those words as the most appallingly self-important boast, even if they -were- true... but there was something in Gryphon's bearing that made that conclusion impossible to reach. He was standing there, one hand on the rail, the other in his coat pocket - standing straight, looking out at the city, his eyes bright with simple, uncluttered pride. There was something charmingly innocent, almost childlike, in the wonder he showed at his own achievement. She leaned closer to him and said in a conversational tone, "Have you noticed that it's freezing up here?" He blinked, coming back from his reverie, then turned to her and laughed. "I have, actually," he said. "We can leave anytime you like. Where would you like to go?" he asked as they started walking toward the stairs. "It's -your- day off." "Are the Razors playing tonight?" Sara asked. "Yes they are... in Nekomikoka," Gryphon replied. "Isn't there a Stargate there?" she asked. "Are you implying that we should misappropriate company resources for personal use?" Gryphon inquired. "Yes," Sara replied. Gryphon grinned. "I like the sound of that," he said just before the stairway door closed behind them, leaving the rooftop empty. /* The Who "You Better, You Bet" _The Ultimate Collection_ */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited You better, you better, you bet presented Ooo... UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT I call you on the telephone My voice too rough with cigarettes CSI: NEW AVALON I sometimes feel I should just go home [100] Locard's Exchange But I'm dealing with a memory that never forgets The Cast I love to hear you call my name (in order of appearance) Especially when you say "Yes" Geoffrey Depew I've got your body right now on my mind Q-Boss Talevan IV But I've drunk myself blind to the Sara Sidle sound of old T. Rex Benjamin D. Hutchins To the sound of old T. Rex Warrick Brown And 'Who's Next' Jim Brass Nick Stokes When I say I love you, you say "You better" Catherine Willows You better, you better, you bet Gil Grissom When I say I need you, you say "You better" Koriand'r You better, you better, you bet Raven You better bet your life Graig tz'An Daarst Or love will cut you Erik Karsten Cut you like a knife Aloysius Miller Hanscombe Beauregarde I want those feebleminded axes overthrown Karla Archer I'm not into your passport picture Conrad Ecklie I just like your nose Ghost You welcome me with open arms and open legs Pat Garrity I know only fools have needs, but this one James Hancock never begs I don't really mind how much you love me Chief of IP Operations A little is all right Benjamin D. Hutchins When you say "Come over and spend the night" Tonight Prime Suspect Tonight Geoff Depew When I say I love you, you say "You better" Trace Evidence Lab You better, you better, you bet Janice Barlow When I say I need you, you say "You better" Chad Collier You better, you better, you bet Chris Pinard You better bet your life Or love will cut you Mostly Baffled Cut you like a knife The EPU Usual Suspects I lay on the bed with you "CSI: Crime Scene We could make some book of records Investigation" created by Your dog keeps licking my nose Anthony E. Zuiker And chewing up all those letters That say "You better" (CBS, Thursdays at 9) You better bet your life (Season 3 box set comes You better love me all the time now out today in the US) You better shove me back into line now You better love me all the time now (That was 2004.03.30 for You better shove me back into line now those of you reading this on the web archive) I showed up late one night with a neon light for a visa (Anyway. Credits, right.) But knowing I'm so eager to fight can't make letting me in any easier Catering I know I've been wearing crazy clothes Celestial Pizza and I look pretty crappy sometimes Port Jeradar, Jeraddo But my body feels so good and I still sing a razor line every time Made possible by a grant And when it comes all my living from the Entomological I know what I'm giving Society of Ragol I got it all down to a T and the annual support of And it's free Viewers Like You (a wholly owned subsidiary When I say I love you, you say "You better" of GENOM Corporation) You better, you better, you bet When I say I need you, you say "You better" With apologies to the You better, you better, you bet usual array of sources When I say I love you, you say "You better" (especially the writers of You better, you better, you bet "Superman: Last Son of When I say I need you, you scream "You better" Krypton"; who could resist?) You better, you better, you bet And a special wink for You better bet your life the boys at Bungie Or love will cut you (world's greatest games) Just like a knife The night shift will return (we're not so sure about the day shift) E P U (colour) 2004