THURSDAY, AUGUST 19, 2410 10:31 PM THE MILLRACE, NEW AVALON The street in front of the apartment building at 1174 Newcomen Avenue was full of colored light and bustling activity, with half a dozen police cars and two Pelican-class aerodynes, one sporting the colors of the IPO Tactical Division, one in the livery of DocWagon International, fanned haphazardly near the front door. Uniformed personnel - New Avalon cops, DocWagon medics, and IPO TacDiv troopers - went here and there, conducting their business with grim purposefulness. Amid all this uniformed action, one man stood out because of both his plain clothes and his relative inactivity, for New Avalon Police Chief Inspector Jim Brass was standing near one of the cop cars, too furious to move or speak. Not until another police car, this one a station wagon, arrived and a man with sergeant's stripes on his sleeve got out was Brass spurred into motion. "What's going on, Jim?" asked Sgt. Russ Schweickart as he crossed the perimeter and met Brass halfway. "Radio call said we've got an officer down." Brass pointed toward another uniformed cop, this one standing near the entrance to the house and looking forlorn. "I need you to explain to Officer Careless over there why, when we clear a room for CSI, we -look in the closet-," Brass growled. "If I try to explain it right now, my version might involve his -face- going through a -door-." "... Right, I'll take care of it," Schweickart said. The watch sergeant had just moved off to take up the matter with his officer when yet another pair of official vehicles, two unmarked black trucks with concealed blue and red flashers, pulled up. From them disembarked the IPO crime lab's entire night shift of field criminalists - less the one taking the night off and the one currently emerging from the apartment building strapped to the DocWagon crew's gurney. "What happened?" Gil Grissom demanded as soon as he was within earshot of Brass. "First officer didn't clear the scene," Brass told him. "Perp was still on the premises. Hiding in the bedroom closet. Nick opened the closet door... zap." He sighed. "I took a shot at the guy, but either I didn't hit him or he was wearing body armor. He went out the window." Grissom looked up at the front of the building. "The initial call said the scene was on the fourth floor," he said. "Yeah. I didn't get a good look at the shooter, but he was humanoid. Dressed in black, maybe tactical gear." Grissom looked hard at the veteran cop for a few seconds, then turned to his three subordinates. "Warrick," he said, gesturing toward the DocWagon Pelican, "go with Nick to the hospital and process his clothes. Catherine, Greg, you're with me. We'll go as soon as the rest get here." Brass looked puzzled. "The rest? What rest?" "I'm calling in -everybody-," Grissom said flatly. /* The Who "Who Are You?" _The Ultimate Collection_ */ I have a message from another time... Eyrie Productions, Unlimited and Avalon 17 Television present UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES FUTURE IMPERFECT CSI: NEW AVALON UPWARD MOBILITY Benjamin D. Hutchins Chad Collier Geoff Depew (c) 2007 Eyrie Productions, Unlimited SOMEWHERE OVER WESTERN AVALON COUNTY 7:44 PM Perth, the city nobody's ever heard of. Standing on the western edge of the Avalon pseudocontinent, it would be a fairly impressive city anywhere else in the galaxy, but in Zeta Cygni it is so thoroughly overshadowed by New Avalon that few outside the sphere even know it's there. The Perthians don't let that get them down, though. If anything, they're proud of their city's splendid isolation - and the fact that its obscurity makes it so much quieter than New Avalon. With a certain wry panache, they affectionately refer to their home as the City on the Edge of Never. It also, mused Benjamin "Gryphon" Hutchins as he flew his Valkyrie flat-out cross-country toward that city, had the interesting distinction of having had nothing to do with him. He hadn't planned it, hadn't had a hand in its design or construction, and but rarely visited it. As such, he had only a vague idea where anything was in town. What he needed, he realized, was a plan. Poking around at random in a strange city was all well and good, but in this case, no, at least a partial itinerary was in order. And that meant he needed a connection. A -fixer-. Keying on the Valkyrie's comm system, he called back to his office. "Hey, Vision?" "Yeah, boss," replied the IPO's principal machine intelligence, her face appearing on his center video display. "Know anything about Perth?" "The one in Australia?" "No, the one on the far side of Avalon County." "Oh. Uh, no, not so much." "Know anyone who -does-?" Vision shrugged. "It's the undiscovered country out there. Depew's still in the office, you want to try him?" "Sure, what the hell. Thanks, V." The screen blanked for a moment, then switched to the face of Geoff Depew. "Bullpen, Depew. Oh, hey, Chief. What can I do for you?" "Hey, Geoff. Know anything about Perth?" Gryphon asked. "A little," Geoff replied. "Big Fire's operations there are limited, but there are at least three safehouses within the city limits... " Gryphon let him list off various crime-connected gun dealers, places where a person could sell goods that did not, strictly speaking, belong to him, and so forth for a minute or so before interrupting. "Geoff. GEOFF." He grinned as the agent trailed off and gave him a questioning look. "I'm taking a woman to dinner, not looking to score a rack of BTLs and a black market plasmacaster." Geoff blinked as if that possibility hadn't occurred to him. "Oh. Uh. No idea. I'd usually just grab a Fodor's if I needed something like that." Gryphon shrugged. "I'm at 78,000 feet, more than halfway to Perth. I can't really swing by W.H. Smith right now." "Well, hang on, let me hop on the net," Geoff said, reaching off-camera to the sound of clattering keys. "What kind of food you want? Italian, Chinese, Greek... I know you like Salusian... " Gryphon made a sound that might've been a cough. "Uh... that might be a little redundant. How about... uh... " A slow, evil smile spread across his face. "... churrascaria," he said, pronouncing the word with relish. "Brazilian barbecue? Hmm. Huh, yeah, as a matter of fact, there's a five-star place downtown. Right off the theater district. (Huh. I didn't know Perth had a theater district.) Anyway - do you want me to call and arrange for them to have a table waiting?" Gryphon grinned. "Make it so, Mr. Depew! And if you've got a couple more minutes, I'd appreciate it if you'd call the Hertz counter at Perth International and reserve their finest automobile. I know that's not your job, but hey, in the IPO you never know what you might be called on to do in the line of duty." Geoff grinned back. "No problem. Anything else you need? I'm happy to be your concierge." "I think that'll do it. Thanks." He checked his navigation system. "Not far out now. By the time I get clearance and park the bird... probably 20 minutes." "I'll have everything ready." "Thanks again, Geoff." "Enjoy your evening, sir." "By the way, what are you still doing in the office?" Gryphon asked. "Major Boothroyd wanted me to test some pistols for him, then write a report," Geoff explained. "He says I document things well. I figure my sacrifice saves everyone else the trouble." "Ah. Well, that's very noble of you," Gryphon observed. "Carry on." "Aye aye, sir," Geoff replied, breaking the connection with a grin. Eighteen minutes later, Gryphon walked into the Hertz office in the Perth International Spaceport concourse and presented his identification to a somewhat surprised desk agent. "What brings you to Perth, Chief?" asked the young man as he led the way out to the parking area. "The strange and shifting tides of fate," Gryphon replied ironically. "What've you got for me?" The rental agent - one MATT, according to the tag on his yellow vest - grinned. "Ahh, you're in luck," he said. "We just got this, you're the first customer to rent it. The latest from our maniacal friends in Crewe." MATT stopped and gestured to the contents of a parking spot with a flourish and a broad smile. "A Bentley Carnage," he said, pronouncing it in the French manner. "Ooh," said Gryphon. "I like it." The car (actually an Arnage Type C) didn't so much sit in its parking space as crouch there, as if lying in wait. It was big and boxy, painted a deep and lustrous green, its body panels smooth and shining as if polished by hand (which, in fact, they had been), and its lines were at once predatory and... well, -smug- was the only word Gryphon could really come up with for it. It had a hood like the deck of an aircraft carrier and fenders that resembled the bunched muscles of a hunting cat ready to spring. This was clearly a fast car - but the finish, and the obviously posh tan leather interior revealed by the open convertible top, made it equally clear that performance came at no cost to luxury. As for the bundle of pink roses on the passenger seat, Gryphon supposed they hadn't actually come with the car. Who knew Geoff had a romantic side? "Will you be needing the supplemental insurance?" asked MATT as he proffered a clipboard and pen. "I wish I could say no," Gryphon replied, taking both, "but experience suggests otherwise." Sara Sidle was waiting by the bus stop on the street outside the spaceport terminal. "I win," she said with a smile as he pulled to a stop. "Nice car." "You cheated," Gryphon protested. "Not only are you exempt from the laws of inertia, you didn't even come straight here. Now -that's- just showing off." "How do you know I didn't come straight here?" she asked, picking up the roses and slipping into the passenger seat. "You're not wearing the same clothes you were when we left my house," he pointed out. "You should be a detective," she remarked. "I've done that," he observed. "The hours were terrible." /* Gipsy Kings "Hotel California" _¡Volare!: The Very Best of the Gipsy Kings_ */ Memo to self, thought Gryphon as they left A Torre da Carne a couple of hours later. Bonus for Agent Depew. "That place is -fantastic-," said Sara. "Who knew Perth was such a happening town?" Gryphon grinned. "I didn't," he admitted. "Geoff Depew found that restaurant on the Internet." "You've got the galaxy's most dangerous game making your restaurant reservations now?" Gryphon shrugged. "Eh, he answered the phone." Then, clapping his palms together, he asked, "So... now what?" "Welllll... did you also have him make a room reservation?" asked Sara with what passed, for her, as a playful grin. "Er... no... that would've been presumptuous," he replied. She shook her head in disbelief. "Are you for real?" "I sometimes wonder," he replied dryly. Fortunately, it wasn't a particularly busy night for Perth's downtown hotels, and a few minutes' poking around yielded a promising prospect. Eschewing the major chains, the two of them settled instead on a smallish tower hotel calling itself the Marconi, a few blocks from A Torre da Carne. Seeking to avoid irritating questions, Sara snooped around the lobby while Gryphon checked in, then joined him in the elevator just before the door closed. "Are you concerned about the press getting wind of your being here?" Sara wondered as they rode upward. "Not really," Gryphon replied casually. "I told the guy at the front desk I'm an entomologist named Grissom." Sara gave him the "are you for real" look again, but he only smiled inscrutably, hands in pockets. The suite at the top of the Marconi proved to be a comfy set of rooms decked out in a turn-of-the-20th-century style, rather more Victorian than New Avalon's preferred Art Deco flavor. Gryphon wondered, as he took off his coat and hung it up, whether Nikola Tesla knew the place existed, and if so, what he thought about a hotel whose theme paid homage to his old nemesis Guglielmo. He was still pondering this when he turned from the closet and noticed that Sara was standing in the middle of the suite's sitting room, regarding him with an odd, unreadable expression. "... What?" he asked warily. She kept looking at him for a moment longer, then shook her head, smiled, and said, "Nothing. I... think I'll take a shower." Gryphon didn't seem convinced that such a prosaic statement was worth the build-up, but he nodded and replied, "All righty." Taking a seat on the couch and hunting up the remote control, he went on, "I'm-a see what's on TV in this town." "What are you looking for?" "Science porn." Sara looked skeptical. "... 'Science porn'." "That's what a friend of mine calls it. It's... you know, TV shows about science, but the production values are pretty much like porn." As he explained this, he found the Science Channel, which seemed to be showing some program about the structure of stars, complete with somewhat cheesy background music and a droning, soporific narrator. "Aha! See? Science porn." "... right. I'm, uh, I'll be out in a few minutes." "I'll be here," said Gryphon agreeably, but inside, he was a bit troubled. What, he wondered, is going on here? What's with the -vibe- in this place tonight? Is there no communication? Have we sunk to the level of dumb beasts? ... Or is that later? This kind of thing seemed like it always happened when he and Sara got together. They genuinely liked each other, with an apparently mutual inclination toward the possibility (at least theoretical) of something more, and there were times when they could just hang around and talk for hours... but whenever things seemed like they might get a bit more serious, even though they both seemed in favor of the idea, something in the air... changed. A certain awkwardness set in, leaving one, the other, or both of them tongue-tied and clueless, and the moment, as the poet said, died a death. Sara had clearly hoped that recent changes in her life would provide the momentum (so to speak) she needed to overcome this, but from where Gryphon was sitting, it didn't seem to have worked, and he wondered, as he listened to the water running and half-watched the TV, what part of the Great Machine just wasn't lining up where the two of them were concerned. It's probably me, he mused. Do I just not know how to interface with relatively normal people any more? Is that what's going on here? Cripes, I'm a little old for teen angst. Oddly, Sara was having pretty much the same thought, except, being Salusian (and having thus reached majority at around the age of 40), she was technically thinking of a different decade of life. At times like this, being around Gryphon was a little like being about 30 again. She prided herself on being able to read people and situations - it was part of her job - but there was something about this man that defied her most concerted efforts to fathom it. Maybe it was just his age, his wildly different perspective on life - but why would that only be a problem at moments like this? The rest of the time it wasn't an issue. He was who he was, she was who she was... why was that so difficult? Once, months before, she'd rhetorically asked Catherine Willows where the common ground was in any potential relationship she might have with the Chief, and Catherine had told her finding out was half the fun. Which invited the question, Half the fun of -what?- Something else Catherine had said on that occasion had stayed with Sara through the intervening months, and it returned to her mind now, as it always did when she considered these matters. "I had a conversation a few months ago with someone who's a lot like you. Trying to look too many steps ahead. Held back by the worst- case scenario. And you know what? Life's too short for that, Sara. Even if you might live forever." Ah, the hell with it, she thought, shutting off the water. You like the guy. He obviously likes you. Who gives a damn why? For once in your life, are you going to just throw the dice, or spend your whole life wondering what would have happened if you had? Twenty seconds earlier, Gryphon was surprised out of his own reverie by an urgent contact to his Lens. It was doubly surprising, in fact - once because someone was calling him at this hour on a Thursday evening, and once because it was coming from Gil Grissom. The mental "voice" of the IPO crime lab's night shift leader carried with it a tone Gryphon had heard a few times before, a combination of tension and tightly-controlled emotion that never boded well in the Chief's experience. he replied. Grissom asked. <... Is this a trick question?> Gryphon wondered. Grissom's bewilderment was palpable through the Lens link. Gryphon glanced at the table near the bathroom door, where, sure enough, an IPO-issue handlink sat with its red "urgent comm" light blinking. he said. Gryphon explained. Gryphon blinked. Grissom relayed the address of the crime scene; then there was a brief pause before his voice, now sounding more puzzled than tense, asked, <... What are you doing in Perth?> Gryphon replied. PHILIP BOYCE MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER CITY CENTER, NEW AVALON 10:39 PM DocWagon Aero Unit #317 had Nick in the Boyce Memorial emergency department within eight minutes of dustoff, which the unit's crew rightly regarded as a pretty fine performance. The company's brass were proud that DocWagon Medical Services had been named the IPO's casualty retrieval service throughout the organization's area of influence. The contract figured in DocWagon's advertising literature all over the galaxy. "Human male, blaster wound to the chest, possible pneumothorax," the aero pilot said to the ER physician as the Boyce trauma team took charge of the gurney. "Pulse 108 and thready, BP 75 by palpation. We have him on IV fluids." The physician in charge nodded briskly as he shepherded the gurney and its wounded cargo into the first trauma bay. A tall, thin Tenctonese in his early sixties, Dr. Rockford Stone had been chief of emergency medicine at Boyce Memorial for a decade. A former Wedge Defense Force Surgeon General, Stone was already a legend in emergency medical circles around the galaxy when he made the jump to heading up the emergency department at New Avalon's most prominent hospital. It was a long time since Stone -had- to pull a shift on the front lines, but he kept his hand in anyway - being in the trenches was what he lived for. Besides, this was a special case. He made a point of being on hand whenever an IPO agent came in with a major trauma. "I need his clothes as intact as possible," Warrick told Stone on the way through the ER foyer. "He was processing a crime scene." Stone nodded curtly. "We'll do our best," he said, "but no promises. Saving the patient comes first." "Absolutely," Warrick agreed. "I'm just letting you know." "Message received," Stone told him. "Wait out here, please." Warrick peeled off and went to the waiting area. He'd already done some initial processing, working around the DocWagon team as they kept Nick stable, but he had no real sense of how useful any of it was going to be. There was something nagging at his mind as he sat down and started taking stock of his field kit, something about the whole situation that struck him as hinky, but he couldn't put his finger on exactly what. Back in the trauma bay, Stone and his team got to work. "All right," the doctor said to his team as they moved Nick into position, "let's see what we've got. I need a full scan. Type and crossmatch, let's get blood hung in case he starts hemorrhaging when we clean the wound." Stone had seen enough blaster wounds in his time to know that this was the biggest potential problem facing him and his team. In order to treat the injury, they would have to remove the burned tissue, but that very damage was what was preventing the wound from bleeding. With a deep chest wound, the danger of a major bleed was ever-present. Even the most competent and cautious trauma team could have problems - and indeed, a few minutes into the process, Stone's did. A well-drilled team, they stayed calm, though the casual observer, seeing their frenetic movements and hearing their raised voices, might have been excused for assuming otherwise. All those movements were purposeful, all those clipped commands efficient, though. They were well on the way to getting the situation under control... ... when the bleeding stopped of its own accord. "Pressure's coming back up," one of the nurse techs reported. "He's stabilizing." "... I didn't do that," said Stone's scrub nurse, baffled. "Nor I," Stone concurred. "Genescope. Now." The Tenctonese surgeon took the instrument he'd requested, dipped its probe in some of the readily available blood, and held the eyepiece to his eye for a few moments. Then he lowered it and said, "Push two units whole and page the Special Trauma on-call. This just became a case for the ninth floor." Warrick knew something was up when the tone of the commotion in Trauma Bay 1 changed. That suspicion was confirmed a few minutes later, when a second team of green-clad medicos appeared on the floor, making with purposeful strides toward the same bay. They didn't have a crash cart and didn't seem to be in that kind of a hurry, but there was a definite sense of urgency about them. What was more, Warrick recognized their leader: Allison Cameron, Sara's doctor since the recent weirdness. To the best of Warrick's knowledge, medical weirdness was Dr. Cameron's stock-in-trade, as it were... so why was she being called in to attend -Nick-? He'd been shot with a blaster, practically the most prosaic emergency that could befall someone in law enforcement. Sighing, he tabbed his handlink and called Grissom. "I've done about as much as I can do here," he reported. "They're still working on Nick, but the weird part is, Dr. -Cameron- just showed up. Do you want me back in the lab, back at the scene, or should I stay here and see if I can find out what's going on?" "Stay there," Grissom told him. "If possible, I want you to talk to him as soon as you can." Warrick looked dubious, though of course Grissom couldn't see him. "I don't think he's gonna be conscious anytime soon, Gris," he said. "Well, stay there for the time being, just in case," Grissom replied. "Okay, will do," Warrick replied. "I'll call you if anything changes." "Do that. Grissom out." Warrick regarded his link thoughtfully for a few seconds, feeling, as he often did, like there was something Grissom wasn't sharing. THE MILLRACE 10:42 PM The day-shift crew arrived within fifteen minutes of Grissom's page, and they did so in a style that made everybody else on the scene stand up and take notice. Well, one of them did, anyway. The others turned up in the same standard-issue black Tahoe trucks the night shift used, trying to find places to park on the increasingly crowded block. One, though, made the scene with a splash, maneuvering through the parking lot Newcomen Avenue had become with the cautious grace of an elephant walking among ants. Even in a city like New Avalon, it was relatively rare to see armored combat vehicles roaming the streets, so the sight of this one - a slab-sided chunk of nasty with six knobbly wheels and a snub-nosed turret on top, all done incongruously up in the sleek black standard paint job of the crime lab - was a little disconcerting. "What the hell is -that-?" Greg wondered. "Ares Citymaster," Catherine replied. "Urban riot-control vehicle. Very big in the Corporate Sector." "Not only that," said Grissom with interest, "that's the model they make exclusively for the Zardon Justice Department." "... How do you know that?" "I read, Greg." As he'd only started work on Monday and there hadn't been time to arrange a meet-the-new-guy meeting at a shift turnover yet, this was most of the night shift CSIs' first look at the new day-shift supervisor. Horatio Caine was a thin, ginger-haired, oddly boyish man who, dressed all in black as he now was, rather resembled the popular stereotype of an Irish Catholic priest. He climbed down from the driver's seat of the Citymaster, gathered his crew, and crossed to the building. "Horatio," said Grissom with a nod of his head. Caine returned the nod. "Gil. What've we got?" "One of my CSIs was shot investigating what looked like a domestic in a fourth-floor apartment bedroom," Grissom said. "We're going to take the building. I'd like your crew to secure and inspect the perimeter and see if you can get an idea of the assailant's escape route." "All right." Caine turned to Barry Allen. "Barry, establish a command post down here, please. You'll coordinate and log our reports and evidence so it's all in the same place when we head back to the lab." Allen nodded. "I'm on it." He went to one of the trucks and started pulling off equipment. "Okay, you two, let's go," Grissom said, turning to lead the way into the building. "Don't forget me," said Sara as she appeared by the entrance, field case in hand. "Sorry I'm late," she added. "I had to keep it below 15,000 miles an hour. Wrong shoes." Grissom looked at her shoes - they did, indeed, appear unsuitable for running at speeds in excess of 15,000 miles per hour, but then what shoes didn't? - and shrugged. "Sorry to interrupt your evening," he said, but Sara brushed it off, already fully in Work Mode. "Uh, yeah, I'd already pretty much taken care of that myself, don't worry about it. Where do you want me to start?" "We know how the attacker got -out- of the building. Why don't you and I see if we can find some sign of how he got -in-. This is supposed to be a secure apartment block. Greg, Catherine, you process the room." "Right." IPO HEADQUARTERS 11:23 PM Gryphon flew directly to Headquarters and landed his Valkyrie on the roof, skipped visiting his office because there was nothing in it he needed, and swung through the Special Assignment bullpen on 37 to grab the keys to one of the official vehicles, since he'd left his own car out at Mathews Memorial Spaceport. He was not entirely surprised to find Geoff Depew still at his desk. "Geoff. Any news?" he asked. Depew looked up and tilted his head quizzically. "Well, I'm almost done with my report... " "No, I mean - oh. You haven't heard." "Heard what?" "Something went wrong on a crime scene up in the Millrace a couple hours ago," Gryphon told him. "Nick Stokes got shot." Depew put his notes aside and stood up. "Fatally?" Gryphon shook his head. "Last I heard, no, but he was in pretty bad shape." "Let me get my coat. I'm assuming you're going to want backup." "The more the merrier," Gryphon replied, snagging a set of keys from the board. "Everybody who's anybody is out there. Grissom even paged in the day shift." He turned and regarded the younger agent. "I don't know if it was just a random failure to clear a scene, or if somebody targeted CSI in general or Nick in particular. With your training, odds are you'll be able to provide some insight on that front." Geoff nodded. "Ready when you are." On their way down to the parking levels in the elevator, Geoff decided to try breaking the pensive silence: "How'd your evening go, sir?" Gryphon seemed to come back from some small mental distance, then considered the question for a few moments before replying, "Well... dinner went great, but after that... you know, something's wrong with the way things are going when a friend getting shot provides a welcome relief to the awkwardness." "Oh. I'm, uh, sorry to hear that." Gryphon shrugged. "Well, it's not the end of the world," he said philosophically. "We'll have time to figure it out later." The elevator opened, releasing them into the uppermost parking level, and Gryphon led the way to one of a row of identical grey Newport Phaetons kept on standby for the use of Special Assignment agents. "By the way," Gryphon said as he fired up the Phaeton and guided it out of the garage, "that car you rented for me was very nice. I think tomorrow I'll see if I can find one for the motor pool." "It's amazing how much more helpful 'IPO HQ' on the caller ID makes people," Geoff observed. Nothing more was said until they were on Tucker Boulevard, heading north into the Millrace district. Then, apropos of nothing, Gryphon sighed and said, "I don't think I understand normal women any more, Geoff." Geoff blinked. "... Sir?" "That's assuming I ever did, of course," Gryphon added, "which is arguable." "Define 'normal'," said Geoff after a moment's consideration. "Well, yeah, I suppose it -is- all relative," Gryphon conceded, which didn't really illuminate matters for Geoff at all. Greg Sanders sat back on his haunches, regarded the readings on his tricorder, then stood up and turned away from the closet to address Catherine. "Well, this explains why Officer Hardaway thought he'd cleared the closet," he said. Holding up the specimen slide he'd just removed from his tricorder's microscanner attachment, he added, "Fragments of photomimetic polymer on the carpet in here. Looks like Brass owes somebody an apology." Catherine blinked. "The shooter was wearing thermoptic camouflage? That's not something you find involved in your average domestic... " "Oh, it gets better," Greg told her. "The blood all over the bed? Isn't blood. It's corn syrup." "You're shitting me." Greg gave her a look. "Catherine, how long was blood my sole livelihood? I know I'm new to field work, but I think I can tell it apart from a waffle topping." Catherine accepted this mild rebuke without comment, instead studying the glistening smear across the coverlet on the bed. It was smudged out of whatever its original pattern had been, thanks to the fact that a 200-pound criminalist had fallen on it with a blaster wound to his chest, but now that she looked more closely, she could see Greg was right. It still looked fresh. Blood wouldn't, not after this much time. The real thing would've turned brown by now. "Okay," she said, giving Greg a small smile. "Nice work. Go log your slides and tell Grissom what you found. I'll keep working this side." Greg nodded. Turning to go, he nearly ran into Geoff, who was standing in the hall doorway surveying the room with an intent look. "Oh, hey, Geoff," said Greg. "Any news?" "I just came from HQ with the Chief," Geoff said. "I haven't heard anything from downtown." "Ah. Well, if you do, let us know," Greg said. "'Scuse me, I gotta go find Grissom. Gonna be a long night." Geoff nodded and let him pass, then stepped into the room, having fitted a pair of clean-room booties over his Chucks. He glanced around, then moved toward the closet, touching nothing. "Catherine," he said, "has the closet been processed?" "Yes," she replied from the far side of the room, her voice tense. "Greg just finished it. Why?" "I want to step into it to see the setup from the shooter's POV, but I also don't want to muck up the scene." Cath nodded. "Eyes, no hands," she reminded him. "You're not rated to collect physical evidence." "Got it," Geoff acknowledged. Carefully, he stepped into the closet, then turned around, getting his bearings from this new angle. He glanced around the room, then looked at the floor, where a small marker indicated where Nick had been standing before the shot dropped him onto the bed. "Chief Inspector Brass," he asked, "will you please go stand over where Nick was?" "I'm not close to his height," Brass protested mildly. "No, but it'll give me a sense of scale." Shrugging acquiescence, Brass moved over to stand athwart the marker. Geoff nodded, then made a gun shape with his hand and pointed it at the lead detective: once with the arm outstretched, once as if shooting from the hip, once with his arm bent like a man who'd done nothing more than open the closet door to shoot. Then he nodded and stepped out. "This is going to sound horrible, I know," he said to Catherine, "but do you know if the wound photos are in yet? I'll need to look at them to give you a good idea about the shooter's height, and the weapon." Catherine Willows was in the business of figuring things like that out, and was not, as Geoff was afraid, annoyed at him; she was just too busy, and too worried, to be particularly sociable just now. "Talk to Allen from Days, he's coordinating." Geoff nodded. "Thank you." With that, he walked from the room. "He's so stiff," Brass observed. Catherine snorted at that. Grissom and Sara's search for the attacker's entrance route led them inevitably to the roof. This was just the kind of site Sara always liked to work. Sure, it was dark, and it was going to take a good long time to search it with just a couple of flashlights, but it was quiet. Even at the top of a relatively small building like this one, the noises of the street and the bustle of all those cops and tactical guys seemed miles away. The gentle drone of the airships cruising overhead was louder than the radio chatter from the cruisers. "Think I got something here," she observed, crouching at the edge of the roof. "Fresh tool marks on the coping." Grissom stepped up behind her and looked. "Grappling hook, maybe." He peered over the edge of the roof into the alley beside the building. "From the roof of the building at 1178." Sara nodded and lifted her camera. "This is looking less and less like a domestic all the time," she remarked. "It was just set up to look like one so the responding units would call us in." Grissom looked off into the distance for a moment, then said in a pensive tone of voice, "Sara... " Sara stopped photographing the marks and looked up, puzzled by his tone. "Yes?" "What do you intend to do?" Grissom asked. Sara frowned. "About... ?" Grissom didn't answer for a few seconds; he seemed to be weighing possible responses. Then he turned to face her, his expression grave, and said, "You should know that... if there ever -was- one... this isn't a good time for me to lose you." Sara blinked, baffled. "-Lose- me?" Grissom nodded. "To Benjamin." That brought Sara to her feet, interesting tool marks forgotten. "ExCUSE me?" she blurted, eyes flashing in the reflected light from his handlamp. "One, that's not really any of your business, and two, to lose me you'd have to have -had- me at some point, which, -what?-" Now it was Grissom's turn to look taken aback; he stared at his angry subordinate for a moment as if her behavior were completely unexpected, then held up his hands in surrender. "Wait, wait, okay, stop for a second," he said. Then, sighing, he rubbed the bridge of his nose and went on, "Can we proceed on the basis that everyone knows I'm bad at this?" Sara's anger subsided slightly, though her body language remained defensive. "I'm not doing so well at interpreting social signals tonight," she said. "I'm sure you can relate? So just tell me what you're trying to say." Grissom regrouped for a moment, then said, "Sara... your new... abilities... could qualify you for a place in one of the Special Assignment groups. Probably Special Assignment 7 at first, and then either the Experts of Justice or Special Assignment 11. But according to regulations, an agent cleared at that level can't work as a criminalist. There's too much chance of a conflict of interest - you could be involved in an SA incident and then end up having to process the scene of your own action. Even having Mr. Depew lend us a hand now and then is a dubious practice at best - once he advances to a non- provisional clearance, it'll be out of the question." Sara folded her arms. "I haven't said anything about making that kind of change - to you, or Ben, or anyone else. It's never even come up." Grissom nodded. "But it -will- come up, eventually," he said. "The temptation to use your special abilities in crisis situations is always going to be there. Depending on the circumstances, it might not be an issue, but if it becomes a habit, sooner or later it becomes a problem." "A minute ago you were worried about losing me. Now you sound like you want me to go." "No, that's not what I'm saying," said Grissom with a shake of his head. "I'm just saying that you're going to have to decide, sooner or later, probably sooner, and if your decision is that you -are- leaving, I need to know." She regarded him for a moment, still obviously nettled by his approach. For a couple of seconds, he dared hope that she'd see how hard the whole discussion had been for him and unbend a little, but he'd timed it all wrong - clearly whatever had happened in Perth had her on edge as it was - and he could see that they weren't going to reach a full understanding, not right now. "Fine," she said stiffly. "I'll keep that in mind. Is that all?" Knowing that the moment was lost, Grissom couldn't help but try once more anyway. In a gentle, almost plaintive voice, he said, "Sara... " Sara turned back to the coping and took a couple more photos. "Why don't you go see if there's anything worthwhile on the other roof," she said in a studiously neutral tone. "... Why don't I," Grissom agreed. As instructed, Geoff made his way to Barry Allen, who was down in the temporary command post the investigators had set up on the sidewalk. When Geoff approached him, Allen was on the phone, typing into a lapframe on a collapsible table with one hand, and trying to pour a cup of coffee with the other. Geoff took the carafe away from him gently and finished pouring the coffee. Once Barry was done with the call, he picked up the coffee, took a sip, and then realized someone was there. "Oh, gosh, I'm sorry," he said. "Barry Allen. Can I help you?" "Geoff Depew, SA7," Geoff replied. "I've got some... unique skills, and the Chief wanted me to see if I could apply them to this situation. Do you have any pictures of Nick's wound yet?" "Yes, indeed," Barry said, tapping on the keyboard. "Warrick just sent over the encrypted copies from Boyce. Let me pull them up." Extreme closeups of Nick Stokes's chest, a livid crater burned into it, popped into view on the criminalist's laptop display. Barry blanched slightly, but Geoff's eyes just moved over them. "Shooter was humanoid," he said in a dry, almost mechanical tone. "Confirms Inspector Brass's observations. He was holding the weapon close to his chest when he fired at point-blank range. About four inches shorter than Nick, making him five-ten. And it's a BlasCap or the generic equivalent, not a standard blaster." He reached out to point at the screen. "The burn pattern on a BlasCap shot is a little different than you get with a standard blaster - there's a 'cool' line here. There may also be some microparticles of duranium embedded in the flesh, carried along on the shockwave." Barry glanced at him. "You're some kind of small-arms expert, to be able to work that out on sight." Geoff shook his head. "More like an assassin trying to set things right. A year ago I might've been the shooter." He took a deep breath. "I need to go find the Chief. Thank you, Mr. Allen." Barry shook his head. "Barry." Geoff smiled a little. "Barry, then." Gryphon was around the side of the building, conferring with Horatio Caine. Though the circumstances weren't what he would have preferred, this was something he'd been hoping to do for some time. For several years Caine had headed up the crime scene investigation unit of the Royal Alderaan Police, Headquarters Division, a lab with the responsibility for an area nearly the size of the old United States on Earth, and he'd made quite a name for himself in that volatile posting. Gryphon had wanted to headhunt him for the IPO CSI division for most of that time, but there hadn't been a position available that wouldn't have represented a demotion until Ecklie's resignation. Now Caine regarded Gryphon with a peculiar sidelong look and remarked, "You know, Benjamin, when you recruited me for this job, I was under the impression that New Avalon was a safe city. Now I get here and find out that it's a place where crime scene investigators get shot, struck by lightning, hit on the head with ancient Salusian melee weapons... " He shook his head sadly. "I should have held out for hazard pay." Gryphon gave a snort of wry laughter. "Horatio. Did I, or did I not, give you everything you asked for to get you in this job? I even approved that... -thing- you brought with you for use as your official vehicle, despite the fact that it doesn't match any of the others used by CSI. I can't tell you what the sight of the divisional parking deck does to my inner obsessive-compulsive now." Now it was Caine's turn to chuckle. "At least we probably won't have to deal with La Mala Noche." "What a name for a gang. I bet the mere mention of 'The Bad Night' really throws a scare into Aldera's Spanish-speaking population." Gryphon shook his head. "Sounds like a soca band." "They're a more serious group than their name would suggest, Benjamin. Besides, if you think about it, 'Big Fire' isn't that much more intimidating." "True." "In any event, at this point there's no indication that either one is behind this incident, as far as I know." "No, I expect not. If Big Fire had done this, they'd want us to know about it. And it's not their style to go after non-frontline personnel. They play by their own weird set of rules." Caine reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a pair of dataglasses, unfolding them. He regarded them thoughtfully for a moment before glancing sidelong at Gryphon again. Then, slipping the glasses on, he remarked, "Sometimes rules change, Benjamin." Calleigh Duquesne prowled around the side of the building with her flashlight. Inasmuch as she could prowl, anyway. Her long shock of platinum blonde hair was more suited to the snowy hills of her ancestral homeland than the urban landscape of New Avalon, nice as it seemed to be. Since she had never actually been to her ancestral homeland, though, she didn't let it bother her. Her impish good looks and unexpected southern-North-America accent had their own properties of distraction. She came upon a wide patch of broken glass marking the spot where the shooter landed after jumping through the window. Tracing the beam of her flashlight up the wall, she judged the distance to the apartment window above. Forty feet or so wasn't an unheard-of distance for several humanoid species. Doing so through regular plate glass without any obvious signs of blood was a little more tricky, unless the shooter was Kryptonian. And since a blaster would be a little redundant to a Kryptonian, she thought, as would, oh, -landing-, that probably means augmentation... Calleigh was rousted from her thoughts by the arrival of Eric Delko, a fellow day-shift CSI. Eric's clean-cut, olive-skinned Latin appearance gave him a slightly exaggerated air of youth that made him look out of place on the job, sometimes a great asset in one of the unsung aspects of forensics: social engineering. This had the side effect of making him the first person to really make Calleigh feel less awkward in her new surroundings. She'd worried that the other investigators might resent her for following Horatio Caine from Alderaan and the perceived advantage that might give her. Eric, at least, had rapidly put those fears to rest. Eric surveyed the scene much as Calleigh had and whistled. "Looks like he stuck the landing. 8.5 from the Vulcan judge." "I think he's disqualified. By Olympic standards anyway." Calleigh squatted at the edge of the broken glass and held her flashlight low to the ground. "Yeah, there's definitely an imprint here." "In the concrete?" "Yup. Reinforced boots of some kind, probably part of a whole body system. At least a support frame, possibly powered. Imprint but no obvious cracks indicates a pretty high level of finesse. Tread pattern will probably be easy to track, though we might have to hit up the IPO military database." "We've certainly got all the juice on this one. Not used to so much brass being on one scene. Nick's a good guy, though." Eric looked momentarily uncomfortable, as if he didn't quite know how to word what he wanted to say next, then pressed on: "Uhhh, just so you know, we really don't get shot at all that much. This has been a weird year." Calleigh chuckled and let her drawl run out. "Oh, don't you worry about me none, sweetie. It's not in any of the travel brochures, but Aldera is a major smuggling hub. Glitterstim, BTLs, you name it. We had stuff blowing up -all- the time." "Is that why Horatio's so... intense?" "Hah, that? Nahhh. He's really a big softy, that's just his game face." Delko looked unconvinced. "Right, I'll take your word for it." "Really, he's a nice guy, just give him some time to get comfortable." "Sure, sure. He can't be any worse than my last boss. That guy, whoo. Decent investigator, but what a dick." Calleigh smiled and turned back to the mess in front of her. "I'm going to grab some pictures, but we ought to get something more detailed, and I don't want to move this glass around too much. Can you go back to Horatio's car and grab the holographic scanner for me? Big black case, can't miss it." "No problem, though I don't know how you can call that thing a car." "A truck has an open bed. Can't help it, I'm old-fashioned." BOYCE MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 2410 12:43 AM Warrick was rummaging through the old magazines on the endtable in the waiting room when a gang of medical types emerged from Trauma Bay 1, Nick's gurney in tow. They headed for the elevator at the end of the ER, except for Dr. Cameron, who peeled off to approach Warrick as soon as she noticed him. "Hi, Warrick," she said, stripping off her surgical cap and gloves as she approached. "Looks like Nick's going to be fine." Warrick let out a long breath. "That's good news." Cameron nodded. "Yeah. It was a little dicey when DocWagon first brought him in - Dr. Stone said he had a pretty severe hemorrhage when his team initially tried to examine the wound, which is pretty common in major blaster injuries. He's stable now, though. We're moving him up to one of the secure rooms in ICU." Warrick looked momentarily puzzled, then understood. "Secure in case he was specifically targeted." "Right." Cameron looked around the empty waiting room, then gestured with her head toward the hallway and said, "Walk with me a minute." With Warrick in tow, she walked down to the elevator bank, summoned another lift, and boarded it, then set it on its way to the upper floor where Intensive Care made its home. Only once the car was closed and in motion did she speak again. "Do you have any idea," she asked, "why Nick would fail to indicate a significant medical condition in his IPO employee medical history?" Warrick blinked. "Pardon?" "I'm violating the spirit, if not the letter, of doctor-patient confidentiality just asking that much," Cameron admitted. "If you don't already know what I'm talking about... forget it." "... Okay." When the elevator arrived at its destination, Cameron stepped out, then turned to face Warrick again. "We'll have him settled within the hour. You and the rest of your team will have clearance to visit him after that." "You think he's going to be in any shape to have visitors?" Warrick asked skeptically, but Cameron only smiled a little in response. "You might be surprised," she said. IPO HEADQUARTERS 01:28 AM For all that the case itself was a classic red ball, the scene of Nick's shooting was in itself not all that complicated and didn't take long to process, especially with the lab's entire complement of criminalists on the job. By 1:30, the night shift team was back in the office, organizing their notes and awaiting the processing of the trace evidence they'd gathered. Greg Sanders hadn't been a field CSI for long, and before then, he'd called the chemistry, biology, and trace labs home. Now, unsure of what else to do with himself, he was back in Trace again, looking over the stuff he and Catherine had found in the bedroom, when a woman he didn't recognize appeared in the doorway. Well, he kind of recognized her, in that he'd been noticing her around the place at shift change all week and wondering who the hell she was. He'd assumed she must be a new detective with CID or the New Avalon cops, working some case with the day-shift CSI crew; she carried herself more like a cop than a criminalist. He was, in fact, wrong. "Hi, you must be Greg. I'm Calleigh Duquesne from the day shift." Whatever response Greg intended never made it out of his mouth. He was already a little overwhelmed by the night - the shock of the news about Nick, a friend's shooting being one of his first big cases as a field agent, and all. He froze for a moment. She smiled. "I'm new." Greg blinked a few times and broke out of his momentary fugue long enough to squeak out a thin, "Uhhh, hi." Calleigh, for her part, took this in stride, never losing her slight smile and pleasant demeanor. Greg would note later that this didn't help. "Someone outside - Sara, I think? - said I should pass this along to you." She handed the Dantrovian a small glass evidence jar. "Found it in the glass where the shooter landed after he jumped, she said it looked like some trace you found up here, figured it might save some time if it went to analysis together." Greg peered at the contents of the bottle. Having something else to focus on helped him get some of his wits back. Trace evidence was familiar. It was tangible. He hadn't failed to read a departmental email introducing it. "Yeah," he said. "That's a, uhh, that's a good idea." "Great. They were alongside boot prints in the sidewalk, probably some pretty heavy gear. Between the trace evidence and the tread patterns, I think we might have something unique enough to track. I've uploaded all my pictures and the holographic scan of the prints back to the office. Eric's back out there making sure there's no other fingerprints or trace on the larger pieces of glass, but that's a long shot... Anyway, feel free to get in touch with me if you need any extra notes on the pictures. Nice to meet you!" Message delivered, Calleigh turned and breezed out. Blinking a bit as his sluggish brain finished processing the verbal onslaught, Greg twitched a couple of fingers in the world's most pathetic wave and said to the empty doorway, "Uhhh, bye." He was still trying to process the last two minutes when Catherine, who had observed the whole exchange unnoticed from the far side of the trace lab, clapped him on the back. "Smooth," she said. Greg grimaced at her, which only made her laugh more. "Beep me when you get something back on this stuff?" "Sure." Catherine left the trace lab, but didn't manage to take her amusment with her. Greg's discomfiture was always good for a giggle, but she wasn't really in a laughing mood. Now that they were done processing the scene itself, she had a chance - her first chance of the day - to pause and think... which, on this particular day, wasn't necessarily a good thing. Something had been bothering Catherine for the last several weeks, and the events of the evening - specifically, working directly with the day-shift CSIs and their new supervisor - had brought that something into sharp focus. Now that she had a little spare time to think, "bothering" became "annoying" and was heading straight for "pissing off" without stopping for gas. En route to Grissom's office to vent, she passed the door to the CSI break room, glanced in as a matter of routine, then kept going for a couple of paces before suddenly halting and backing up. There, stretched out on the sofa in the corner of the room, was the very object of her wrath. How very convenient. The opportunity was too good to pass up, so, without further ado, she strode into the room, crossed to the couch, and shoved its occupant unceremoniously to the floor. Finding himself suddenly subject first to gravitation and then to institutional carpet, Gryphon woke and looked up. "... Catherine," he said conversationally. "We need to -talk-," Catherine replied grimly. "Well, by a strange coincidence," said the Chief as he climbed to his feet, "I'm awake." Dusting at his sleeves, he added archly, "If you wanted to wake me, I can think of more hospitable methods. What's the matter?" "Why wasn't I considered for Ecklie's job?" Catherine demanded. Gryphon blinked, his face taking on the look of a man who -knew- he was forgetting -something-. "Did you -want- Ecklie's job?" he asked. "It's a little late to be asking now, don't you think? But as it -happens-, yes, I'd thought about it a bit. I have 12 years of experience, more than anybody else in the lab except Allen, and -he- doesn't want it. My record isn't perfect, but it's pretty damn good. So, what? Was it because I haven't finished my doctorate yet? Or do you just not think I can do the job?" Gryphon shook his head. "No, it wasn't that at all. I know you can do the job. I'm just not convinced you want to." Catherine's expression combined confusion and continued anger. "... Come again?" "Look, for the last three months you've been showing all the classic signs of incipient burnout," Gryphon pointed out. "How smart an administrator would I be if I promoted someone to a leadership position in a job she's not sure she still wants to do?" Catherine folded her arms, clearly unimpressed with his argument. "There could be other factors at work that you don't know about. You don't know everything. You could've at least -asked-." "You're right. I could have; I should have; and I'm sorry I didn't. But to tell you the truth, I've been expecting you to put in for a transfer to CID proper since at least June." "Well, the last time I checked, you weren't telepathic," she shot back. "So how about the next time you -ask- instead of just -assuming- you know what I want out of life." Shaking her head, she left the room, taking her parting shot as she did so: "Lately I'm starting to think you believe your own press." Gryphon stood looking after her for a few moments, but made no attempt to follow. He knew from experience that it would be futile. Instead, he sighed and went into the hall himself, heading the other way, toward the elevators - only to pull up short because Sara was standing there, looking bemused, having clearly witnessed at least the end of the confrontation. (Indeed, thanks to the transparent walls of the lab complex, a good many people had, though the scientists in the trace and bio labs were studiously pretending they hadn't.) "That looked like it went well," Sara said wryly. Gryphon threw up his hands. "I'm going to go sleep it off," he said. "Please let me know if there's any other way I can screw up tonight." "Hey," she said, stepping close and putting a hand on his shoulder. She leaned toward him and murmured so any potential onlookers wouldn't hear, "You didn't screw up. Okay?" He gave a tired smile and put his hand over hers. "Okay." "I'm going over to Boyce to check on Nick," Sara told him. He nodded. "Call me if anything comes up." She gave a crooked little smile and said, "I'll probably call you anyway. Night." "Good night, Sara." They went in separate directions, he to the elevator and the roof, she to the stairs and the street. BOYCE MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER ROOM 916 01:40 AM Nick Stokes woke to find himself in what was unmistakably a hospital room. He had no idea what time it was, but though his faculties were a bit dull, he was still a trained observer. The faint yellowish-gold glow coming through the closed blinds told him it was night, as did the dim hallway lighting. He was in a private room, hooked up to a number of monitoring devices and a couple of IV drips. Through the transpex wall of his room (it reminded him a bit of the CSI offices back at HQ), he could see the backs of a pair of uniformed Tactical Division officers flanking the entrance. He was abominably thirsty, but aside from that, he didn't feel too bad. Clearly there was something good in at least one of those IVs, because he could tell that his chest, which was heavily bandaged, -would- hurt if not for some chemical intervention, but by and large he had few complaints. One of the monitors must have alerted someone to the change in his state of consciousness, because a few moments later Allison Cameron appeared, checking past the guards and entering the room with a clipboard in hand and a smile on her face. Even fogged with drugs, Nick knew that kind of smile. It meant she was pleased to see him awake, but it also meant she had questions for him. He'd been dreading this moment ever since the blaster went off. "Well, Mr. Stokes," she said. "You've had a narrow escape." "Yeah," he replied, his voice low and hoarse, throat dried by the oxygen-rich mix he was breathing through his nasal cannule. "Lucky me... " "Oh, it was a little more than just luck," Cameron said. "Look, it's not my job to ask why there's nothing in your IPO medical history about your Detianism, that's between you and HR. However, as your -doctor-, I have to admit it would have been -somewhat- helpful to know in advance." Had Nick been capable of sitting up, he'd have slumped back in the bed. As it was, he could only sigh. "I didn't want anyone to know." "This much is obvious," Cameron said wryly. He opened his mouth to reply, but she held up a hand. "You shouldn't do a lot of talking right now. Detian or not, you suffered a very serious injury - you nearly died. Later, though, we're going to have to update your medical history." She tucked the clipboard under her arm and smiled. "There are a few -gaps- in it." Nick gave a thin chuckle. "Sure." "In the meantime, your colleagues will appreciate knowing that you're going to be okay... " She stifled a yawn with the back of her free hand. "... And I'll appreciate getting some sleep. I was just nodding off when Rocky paged me." "I thought they trained doctors not to sleep in medical school," said Nick with a wan grin. "We only keep that up until we finish our residencies," Cameron replied. "It's part of the dues-paying process, and brother, I've paid mine." Becoming businesslike again, she went on, "Get as much rest as you can. Dr. Gupta's covering the overnight shift on this floor tonight, if you have any problems. I'll be back in the morning. Okay?" "Okay. Thanks, Doc." Cameron waved and left the room. A few moments later, Warrick rounded the corner, badged past the guards, and walked to the side of the bed. "Nick, man," he said reproachfully as he grabbed Nick's hand in an armwrestler's clasp, "you screwed up the crime scene." Nick laughed weakly. "Yeah... sorry about that. Did Brass get the guy who shot me?" "Tagged him, didn't bring him down. We're still working it. Did you get a look at him?" Nick shook his head. "All I could see was the business end of that gun, man." Warrick nodded. "Yeah, I hear that." Nick's brow furrowed as he tried to dredge up his recall of the incident. "There was something weird about it, though." "Yeah?" "Yeah. The gun... the gun looked like an old-fashioned Army .45. Like the one Cath has." Warrick whistled. "Serious antique." "Yeah. But what hit me was no bullet." "We got a line on that. Depew thinks the shooter used a blaster cap." "Depew's working my case?" Warrick chuckled. "-Everybody's- working your case, man." "Huh. Blaster cap. Well, that'd explain it." Nick racked his brains for a few more moments, then sighed. "I wish I could give you more, but I just didn't see anything." "It's all right, man," Warrick assured him. "You shouldn't worry about that right now." "He's right, Nick," said Sara from the doorway. "You have bigger things to worry about." Nick raised an eyebrow. "... I do?" Sara nodded, giving him her most severe face. "Uh-huh. You've got a -lot- to answer for, Mr. Stokes." "... I got shot!" Nick protested. "Yeah. You got shot." Sara folded her arms. "On my day off. The second one I've taken... oh... -ever-. I was in -Perth- having a -nice time- and I had to run all the way back here because -you- couldn't stay out from in front of a -blaster-." Nick looked stricken. "Aw, that's just not fair," he said. "Relax, man, she's just busting on you," said Warrick. Rolling his eyes in Sara's general direction, he added, "It's her way of showing relief." Sara dropped her severe attitude and smiled, rounding to the other side of Nick's bed and patting his arm. "Warrick's right. Technically I wasn't even having that nice a time anyway." Warrick raised an eyebrow at this, but declined to address it. Instead he said, "Listen, we should get back to the lab. And you need to get some rest. Someone'll be by to see you tomorrow, okay?" "Yeah... okay," Nick said. "Thanks for coming, you guys." As they walked down the hall toward the elevator together, Sara turned an inquisitive face to her colleague. "Hey, Warrick?" "Yeah?" "How the hell is Nick even conscious right now? I saw the photos, he had a hole in him the size of a baseball when he came in here. He should be in a bacta tank." Warrick shook his head and punched the elevator call button. "Beats the hell outta me. Something's going on that we don't know about." "Yeah." Sara frowned. "... I -hate- that." IPO HEADQUARTERS 08:12 AM Geoff Depew emerged from the elevator, tired but not overly so - thanks to his Daodan implant, he didn't need as much sleep as a normal person - and headed for the night shift supervisor's office, report in hand. He could have emailed it, of course, or entrusted it to the building's internal delivery system, but some part of him felt more comfortable delivering important documents by hand. It was an old- fashioned impulse conditioned by years of dealing with Big Fire's deliberately antiquated internal accountability systems, but it wasn't entirely out of place in the IPO's corporate culture either. In fact, in many ways the two organizations weirdly mirrored each other, like the sides of a coin. It was a similarity Geoff sometimes found unsettling. He was a little surprised to find Gil Grissom actually -in- his office. He'd been vaguely hoping Grissom would've gone home by now, so he could just drop his report on the man's desk and get gone, but he wasn't to be so lucky. Grissom was in, and moreover, had already spotted him coming. Geoff wasn't sure why, but since their very first meeting, Grissom had intimidated him a little. He seemed unremarkable enough, a mild-mannered, middle-aged Salusian entomologist, but some ineffable instinct always murmured to Geoff that this was a man not to be trifled with, and Geoff trusted his instincts - especially the ineffable ones. He always made it a point to treat Grissom with respect, because in their first confrontation, Grissom had earned it in perpetuity. "Dr. Grissom?" he asked from the supervisor's office doorway. "Yes, Geoffrey, come in," Grissom said, beckoning. Geoff crossed to Grissom's desk, but did not sit down. Instead, he offered the folder and form in his hand and said, "Here's my written report, sir. And if you could please countersign my class chit? I can get credit toward my criminology degree for contributing to an open investigation." "Of course. Thank you." Grissom signed the form and slid it back across the desk, then looked up inquisitively. "... Is there something else?" "I was about to ask you the same thing. You seem preoccupied. Not that it's any of my business, of course, but... " Grissom regarded him for a few seconds, and Geoff was sure he was about to lapse into his customary inscrutability, as he always did. Instead he said, "Four years ago, I lost a CSI on my shift because of an improperly cleared crime scene. This incident is uncomfortably reminiscent of that one. Add to that the fact that I may soon lose another to your department and a third to burnout... " Grissom took off his glasses, rubbed the bridge of his nose, and then offered a wry, weary little smile. "I'm not the galaxy's biggest supporter of change." He and Geoff sat looking at each other for a few seconds, pondering all that. Then, at almost the same moment, realization sparked in both of their minds. Geoff said it first: "Who would know the details of that case from four years ago?" BOYCE MEMORIAL MEDICAL CENTER 04:38 PM Nick was feeling much better after several hours' sleep - well enough to have some lunch, which surprised even his doctors - and another battery of tests indicated that he was recovering nicely. He'd have to take it easy for a couple of weeks, and he'd be sore for several days, but he was out of danger... at least from the wound he already had. Of course, the speed of his recovery made it entirely impossible to keep up the charade that he was an ordinary person, at least with the people who knew him best, but he'd expected that, and since waking up he'd spent most of his time thinking about it. He wondered if failing to disclose this kind of thing was grounds for any kind of official disciplinary action. He supposed not - it wasn't like his little secret had ever put anyone -else- in danger - but all the same, he wouldn't blame anyone he worked with for being at least a little annoyed at the lack of trust it implied. Ah, well. No sense worrying about it now. The cat was already out of the bag... Nick was distracted from this line of thought by the arrival of a visitor - one he hadn't really expected to see, though he was certainly not displeased to see him. "Doc! What are you doing here?" he asked. "Hiya, Nick," said Dr. Albert Robbins, the IPO's chief medical examiner. "How're you doing?" "Great. Ready to get back to work, even," Nick replied, stretching the truth to make a point. Robbins shook his head. "Ahhh, no, actually, can't have that just yet." "Why not?" "Oh, did no one tell you? You're dead!" Robbins declared, beaming. Nick blinked. "-What?-" "Apparently the evidence points toward a deliberate attack on you," Robbins explained. "Grissom and Brass decided you're more useful to the investigation if whoever's responsible doesn't know you're a Detian. And since letting you out after the wound you suffered pretty much would broadcast that fact... you're dead. The team here at Boyce thought they had you stabilized, but you took a turn for the worse after lunch. Tragic, really, but these things happen sometimes." Robbins indicated the black bag he carried. "As IPO chief ME, I'm here to take charge of your remains." Nick rewound the doctor's pronouncement to a key point and said, "... So you know." "Wasn't hard to figure out," Robbins replied with an offhanded shrug. "You work with -forensic scientists-, Nick. A man gets shot point-blank in the chest with a .45-caliber BlasCap, and 15 hours later he's eating lunch? There are only so many explanations for that." "Did anybody tell my parents what's really going on?" "Not my department. Probably not - the more people know a secret, the shorter its lifespan." Nick sat back and let out a long sigh. "My mom must be freaking out." "It's likely," Robbins conceded. "But think how happy she'll be when she finds out the truth." Nick gave the pathologist a you're-not-really-helping glare, but it was half-hearted at best. "So what happens now?" Nick wondered. "I just cool my jets here until something breaks in the case?" Robbins shook his head. "Nope. The hospital needs this bed for someone who's actually sick," he said with a mischievous smile. "But we've made other arrangements. You'll be well looked after. Have fun surfing the net! We'll keep you updated." IPO HEADQUARTERS 05:17 PM Geoff swung into the trace evidence lab feeling refreshed after a several-hour nap. As he'd expected, Greg Sanders was there, despite the fact that he was technically supposed to be off today. It didn't appear that anyone had gone home, or at least they hadn't stayed there. "What've you got for me, Coach G?" he asked. Greg looked up from his notes and grinned his "I've got what you want" grin. "Interesting tidbits," he said. "That thermoptic camo fragment I found is a weird formulation, and the Days crew found a bunch more of it backed onto what reads like titanium alloy plate. And those boot impressions Calleigh found in the sidewalk? -Very- weird tread pattern." He slid a photo across the worktable. "Add it all up and you get highly specialized military equipment. The kind of stealthy light powered suit they wear on elite counterterrorism teams. Royal Salusian Public Security Section 9, Earthforce ESWAT... Novaya Rodina Spetsnaz." Geoff frowned. "Spetsnaz. Hmm." Greg gave him a speculative look. "You know of a reason why the Neo-Soviets would send a Spetsnaz commando to take out Nick?" Geoff shook his head. "No. But I've heard on the grapevine that one of their other outfits is missing an agent." He thought about it for a few moments longer, then clapped the Dantrovian on the shoulder and said, "Thanks, Greg. I have to go ask an old enemy for a favor." THE MILLRACE 05:49 PM "You should be aware that this is -not- part of the standard patient services package at Boyce Memorial," said Dr. Cameron as she wheeled Nick into her apartment. Cameron lived in one of those fake converted warehouses in the Millrace, no more than a mile from the building where Nick was shot. This structure, which rejoiced in the boldly painted name "World Wide Building", had what Nick could only consider an interesting array of tenants, a couple of whom he'd seen en route from the parking garage. The first floor was home to a redheaded woman with a bionic eye and a quite large handgun; up on 2 was a startlingly tall Salusian guy who looked like a weightlifter or something. "Interesting neighbors you have," Nick observed. "The building's an IPO safehouse," Cameron told him. "I moved in here when I got to town because Earth Alliance Security still has an open file on me. My downstairs neighbors are CID operatives, I think. You ought to be safe here until the police find the guy who shot you - especially if no one else knows you're here." "Convenient," said Nick. "Listen, I appreciate your playing along with this. I'll try not to be in the way." "Oh, it's no problem," Cameron said. "I'm not home much anyway. I'm covering another doctor's shift tonight, for instance, so I won't be home until sometime late. Your case is an IPO priority, though, so if you need anything, page me." She helped him stash the hospital-issue wheelchair in the hall closet, showed him where everything was, instructed him to take it easy and let his wound heal, and then headed back to the hospital. Left to his own devices, Nick set up his work laptop on the kitchen table, figuring if he couldn't go out and work, he might as well at least get something done on all the research and documentation he had piled up. He'd spent a couple of absorbed hours futzing around with that - it took his mind off the lingering soreness in his chest - when he suddenly became aware that he was no longer alone in the apartment. "Hey, Nick," Sara said. "Thought you might be hungry, and since Allison's just like -me- it's a given there's no -food- in this place, so I brought you takeout from Star of Kumbaria." She held up a couple of plastic bags emblazoned with the restaurant's logo as proof. Nick smiled. "Hey, thanks. Nobody saw you come in here, did they?" Sara looked mildly offended. "Nick. The -security cameras- didn't see me come in here." Nick accepted that as probable, pushed his laptop aside, and gestured her to the table. "So," said Sara as she pulled cartons from bags and Nick hunted for forks. "Detian, huh?" Nick sighed. "Yeah. I guess everybody in the office knows by now." "Just the field team," Sara told him. "You know, us, your closest associates? Why didn't you ever mention it? Afraid we'd send you into all the hazardous situations?" she asked with a wry grin. "No, nothing like that," Nick insisted. "It's not that I don't trust you guys. It's just, it's -personal-. You of all people should understand that... " "Are you saying I'm secretive?" Sara asked, but she was unable to maintain even a veneer of indignation in the face of Nick's "oh come on" face. "... Okay, so maybe I am. But come on, Nick, it isn't like you cheated on your proficiency test or something. It's nothing a normal person like -you- would be ashamed of," she added with playful self-deprecation. "I'm not ashamed. I just don't have a lot to say about it. I don't... " He hesitated, then plunged ahead. "I don't even know why I -am- one." Sara looked puzzled. "Well, unless you had a retroviral infusion at some point, I'd say one of your parents is an old-time Wedge Defender." Nick shook his head. "My folks are just regular people. Dad's a -judge-, for heaven's sake, and not with a capital J like your Zardon friends. And I'd have noticed by now if one of them wasn't aging." He took a bite of his appetizer, dealt with it, and then added, "But then I'm adopted, so... " "Hm. Well... you were born in New Avalon, right?" "Right." "So the county keeps records of all that stuff. What does your file say about your birth parents?" "I don't know. I've never looked it up." Sara looked dumbstruck for a moment. "Seriously? Never? Man. I would want to know. But then, I'm like that." "I almost looked it up once," Nick admitted. "Back in college, when my... 'gift' first manifested itself. I got -clobbered- in a turfball game my junior year at NAU. And I mean hard. Legs-don't-bend- that-way hard." "The Joe Theismann experience." "Yeah. ... You've heard of Joe Theismann?" "They showed the film at a seminar I went to on compound fractures." "Oh. Anyway, my doctors figured I was gonna be lame for life, might even lose the leg." He paused. "I was playing again by the end of the season." Sara arched an eyebrow. "People must have noticed that." Nick shrugged. "I was young and healthy. My doctors and rehab people were happy to think they'd pulled off a miracle... but I knew something wasn't right. That summer I took the money I saved from my summer job and paid a testing lab to do a confidential gene scan. That's how I know." He sighed. "After that I couldn't play any more. My conscience wouldn't let me. Fortunately, I was pretty good at science too, so I concentrated on that." He gave her a wry smile. "I guess I -am- lame for life now, working the supergeek job." "Hey," said Sara. "Some of us are -proud- to be supergeeks." Nick chuckled. "Well, I'm not making the kind of money I would have in the GTL, but my co-workers are a lot more interesting." Sara laughed. "Nice. Make sure you save that line for Catherine." "Heh, I'll do that." The conversation veered to lighter topics for the rest of the meal. After helping with the cleanup, Sara reached into the inside pocket of her jacket and produced a small envelope. "Just so you don't get bored while you're cooped up, here are your instructions from Grissom," she said, handing over the envelope. Then, with an enigmatic smile, she added, "I was never here." Nick smirked. "You're really enjoying this secret-agent thing, aren't you?" "Kinda, yeah," she admitted. "Take it easy, Nick. We'll be checking up on you." "Okay. Thanks, Sara." "No problem." She turned to go, then paused and turned back. "Hey." "Yeah?" She grinned. "I'm glad you're not dead." "Yeah... me too." And then she was gone. "... I'm never gonna get used to that," Nick remarked as he walked gingerly back to the kitchen. SOUTH DOCKS, NEW AVALON 10:22 PM It was, Geoff reflected, a classic spot for a rendevous of spies. Say what you would about the Neo-Soviet Ministry for State Security, its officers respected their roots. Standing at the end of the pier, his lined face illuminated only by the coal of his cigarette, the MGB resident for New Avalon looked like he'd stepped straight out of a 1950s spy thriller. Geoff walked down the pier and stopped even with the trenchcoated figure. "Yevgeniy," he acknowledged. "Thanks for meeting with me on such short notice." "I confess I did so only in hopes that I might find out what your message meant," Yevgeniy Pribilenkov replied in a voice like the sliding of a drawer in a wooden desk. With a thin smile, he added, "I am only a minor member of a trade delegation, after all. I know little about any 'missing government assets'." "Cut the crap, Yevgeniy," Geoff said sharply. "I don't have time and neither do you. We know one of your agents has gone rogue and started selling her Red Room skills for cash. That must really frost your socialist shorts, doesn't it? Give me a line on her and she won't be a problem for you much longer." "Assuming, for the sake of discussion, that I knew anything about what you're talking about, what will you give me in return?" "I just told you." "Eliminating a rogue agent isn't much of a payoff," Pribilenkov remarked. "We could do that ourselves." "Then why haven't you?" Geoff replied calmly. Pribilenkov gave Geoff a long, assessing, faintly admiring look. At length he said quietly, "I had heard that you had turned cop and gone soft, Hellbringer." "Cop, yes. Soft, no. Name. Now." THE MILLRACE 10:48 PM Nick was absorbed in some notes on ballistic evidence for a case that was due to go to court soon when the telephone rang. He almost answered it before he remembered that a) that would blow his cover and b) it wasn't his phone anyway. Instead he went back to work, half-listening as Cameron's smarthouse system got it. The announcement on her home voicemail was carefully generic, obviously worded on the premise that if you didn't already know whom you were calling, you didn't need to find out from the phone system. Having worked the homes of a few people who were less cautious about their personal security, Nick appreciated that. Then again, he supposed being a fugitive from Nightwatch would tend to make a person more than usually security-conscious. A moment later, the wall speaker beeped and the caller's voice - a man's, sounding a bit disoriented, with a lot of noise and what sounded like a Bith bar band in the background - said: "Cameron. This is... uh, Greg. Listen, Wilson and I are out on the Rim. It's -great- here. You need to come out. They'll let you go to waste in that damn hamster ball. There's real medicine to be done out here, and, uh... I... I miss... working with - what the hell was that? Oh, shit, Wilson, gimme a quarter. WILSON! WILL YOU WAKE UP AND GIMME A QUARTER, THE PHONE'S -" Click, beep. Nick regarded the wall speaker with bemusement, then went back to work. An hour later, when Cameron got home, he said, "Some guy named Greg called. Not Greg from the crime lab. He left a message." Shaking his head with a grin, he added, "It's, uh, special." "Oh, no," said Cameron with a wary look. "What did he want?" Nick shrugged with the one shoulder it didn't hurt to shrug with. "Something about real medicine out on the Rim." "Christ on a stick, that's my old boss." Addressing the phone on the kitchen counter as if it were the man who'd called, she demanded, "Goddammit, House, what the hell are you doing calling me?" Nick blinked. "Wait. Greg -House-? You worked for Gregory House? -The- Gregory House?" Cameron turned to him with a look of exasperated resignation. "Don't tell me. You've read his book." "Well... yeah." Nick hesitated, then figured he was in as deep as he could get anyway and asked, "Which one were you?" Cameron rolled her eyes. "I believe I appear in that particular work of -fiction- as 'Dr. Morrison'," she said. Nick tilted his head. "Weird. In the book she's Salusian." "Yeah, well, House always wished I was," Cameron said wryly. Then, yawning, she went on, "I'm going to bed. And you should too. You need more rest." "Hey, on my usual schedule, it's not even quitting time yet," Nick protested with a grin. When she gave him a stern look, he surrendered with good grace. "Okay, okay. I'm not gonna argue with my doctor. I'll call it a night." "You do that. If you give me any trouble, there are some -very painful tests- you might need before you can go back to work," she said, her smile putting the lie to the threat. "Good night, Nick." "Night, Doc," said Nick as he folded up his laptop. 105 MORGAN LANE SATURDAY, AUGUST 21, 2410 01:08 AM Gryphon was dozing on his sofa when his vambrace computer chimed its you-have-mail chime. Stirring, he popped up the holographic display and found himself with a high-priority message from Geoff Depew. Considering that Geoff rarely emailed him with anything at all, Gryphon opened it curiously. Line on shooter. ex-Novaya Rodina special ops. Tracked a delivery to a warehouse. Will call for backup once I'm sure. PUCKETT'S LANDING As Gryphon was reading the mail, Geoff was pulling on a pair of rubber gloves and opening a door. The Jackal was in his right hand as he pushed the door open. Nothing seemed to lie beyond but silence in the dark. He tapped the side of his head twice. At the first tap, his night-vision goggles energized, allowing him to see into the ultraviolet. The second activated a small UV floodlight on the headpiece, filling the warehouse with what, through the NVGs, appeared as an eerie but revealing blue glow. He swept the place carefully, disturbing as little as possible, passing a small army cot, a table laden with weapons and weapon-care gear, a small refrigerator. Most of the rest of the warehouse was full of boxes. Two of the nearest crates were open and filled with straw. One was otherwise empty, but the straw bore the clear imprint of a person-shaped object: almost certainly an armored battle suit. Nestled in the other crate's straw were a number of weapons. Geoff did some gun-based math and nodded to himself. "She didn't go far," he murmured. Then he moved to the door and stepped out. The rooftops showed nothing... but then, he didn't have the ability to see if there was someone in thermoptic camo up there. The first sign, probably, would be the bullet hitting his head... ...no, let's stop thinking about that. Geoff put it out of his head and activated his link. "Dispatch, Depew. I need uniforms and CSI at 1454 Steubing in the Landing. Tell CSI it's related to the Stokes sh-, er, murder." With the acknowledgement, he stepped back into cover and waited for them to arrive. The first SUV pulled up in short order, and Catherine and Greg stepped out. "What you got for us, big boy?" Catherine said. "This is where Nick's shooter was staying. She's gone now, but GUN!" /* Looking Glass Studios "Hydroponics B/C" _System Shock 2_ */ That was not, in fact, a non sequitur. Geoff had suddenly picked up, in his NVGs, a pencil-thin beam of coherent light reaching down from a nearby rooftop - a laser sight aimed right at the back of Catherine's head. He swept her legs out from under her, leaving her to be caught by a very surprised Greg, as the bullet slammed into the side of the warehouse. "Call you later," Geoff said, and took off, despite Cath's yell of "Hey!" Up the side of the building, across the roof, and Geoff caught a glimpse of a distortion. His handlink buzzed. "Does the lamp on those goggles of yours do ALS?" Greg's voice asked, with Catherine cursing in the background. "Yeah," Geoff said. Running at full speed, he jumped off the roof, hurtled across the street, landed on the other side with a 'whoof', tumbled once, and came up running. "Why?" "Set it for 142.23 - thermoptic camo material fluoresces at that setting." "No kidding." "Sara's discovery, from that incident out at Roswell Gap a few months ago," Greg confirmed. "Right, sometime soon I gotta buy you and Cath breakfast - send whoever comes next to the roof of 1212 Watkins, there's a rifle here needs processing. Out." The effect wasn't perfect. Geoff's NVGs were designed primarily for building entry and CQB situations; their light source wasn't built to cast its altered light much further than his immediate surroundings. Still, with its setting changed according to Greg's tip, he could sometimes catch flashes from up ahead - tiny bits of material caught on edge - and as he ran, he felt his face pull into a feral smile. The chase was on. HELL'S KITCHEN 03:14 AM Yelena Belova finally caught her breath as the cargo elevator doors opened. A tall blonde Novaya Rodinskaya, she had been one of the MGB's finest agents, even so far as to having been given the Red Room's most coveted female agent codename - Black Widow - after the first one turned traitor. It seemed the codename was cursed; within a year of graduation, Yelena had chosen to sell her services to anyone who could pay, instead of blindly serving the state, making her as much traitor as the first woman to bear the name. This was her backup safehouse in New Avalon, and more importantly it was the one where she'd hidden her pay. It might have been in Hell's Kitchen, but there were alarms and traps here that would deter the thieves and robbers. And then they had to find the safe. As for those who sought her for the scientist's killing, she had nothing to fear from them. No one could have followed her across all those rooftops from Puckett's Landing, not with the cutouts and switchbacks she'd incorporated into her route. Her ideology might have strayed from the Neo-Soviet line, but her tradecraft was still pure Red Room. No sooner had that thought crossed her mind as she was caught in the back by one of the strongest blows she'd ever felt, with absolutely no warning at all. It catapulted her across the room, landing her facefirst on the ancient, scavenged bed near the corner. She tried to use the momentum, but the mushy bed absorbed most of it. She rolled over to see who had gotten the drop on her. It was the man from the warehouse - tall, broad, brawny, a little heavyset. He wore a set of SWAT-style night operations optics, jeans, a baseball shirt, and a pair of sneakers, with a light jacket over to hide what were, at the moment, very obvious guns. One of them was pointed straight at her. Also, he appeared to be glowing slightly, which was disconcerting to say the least. he asked in perfectly inflected Russian, his voice low and oddly intense. She just gave him an angry look and started to move on the bed. It almost looked like she was trying to get up. the man continued conversationally, Switching to Standard without a pause, he added flatly, "It. Won't. Work." Belova elevated her chin defiantly. "You will never make me talk." "Doesn't matter if you do or not, really," he said. "My friends back at the lab are already making all your -stuff- from your Puckett's Landing hideout talk. I just thought maybe you'd want to make an offer while it can still help you." Then his eyes narrowed. There was a hint of cruelty around his eyes and mouth at that. She hesitated, then sagged in defeat. "... I want protective custody." "Not immunity?" "I know my rights in this city. They would not give me immunity, but with protective custody I may survive to be tried." The door opened with a crash, letting in Jim Brass and three uniformed cops. "That her?" Brass said to Geoff. "Yes. Yelena Belova, this is Chief Inspector Brass. He needs to talk to you briefly." As Brass started reading Belova her rights, Geoff walked down the stairs. He got halfway before he had to sit down on a landing. He propped himself against the wall and felt the regenerative sensation wash over him. When his eyes opened, Gil Grissom was there. "That looked unpleasantly fascinating," Grissom commented. "Are you all right?" Geoff chuckled darkly. "Burned a charge on the Miraculon shooter to activate the Daodan and get ahead of her, then through her security first. The last of it went into the takedown - gotta do that with -authority-. Glad your people got here when you did." He started to get up, then slipped. "Nng. I think I need to sit and rest a little." "Understandable. And thank you, Geoffrey. I'm sure that once she gets over being mad at you for knocking her over, Catherine will be thanking you, too." "You've very welcome." They hauled everything from Belova's second hideout back to the lab, where it joined the rich trove of evidence mined from the Puckett's Landing warehouse. There was plenty to keep everyone busy, however bleary-eyed they might be. In the layout room, Greg Sanders lifted a metal case onto the table and examined it. It was one of those green ammunition cans, the kind that could be found at any army-navy surplus store in the known galaxy. They were handy for storing all kinds of things, since they stacked neatly, had stout handles, and were both sturdily built and waterproof. They'd found four in the safehouse down in the Kitchen, all apparently identical. Apart from an EOD sniff to make sure they weren't bombs or something, they'd been left alone until now. Greg fingerprinted the case. As he'd expected, that yielded nothing in particular. Then, after photographing it, he cautiously opened the latch and swung the lid open. Inside he found a number of carefully wrapped wax paper parcels. Gingerly removing one, he took photos of that, checked it for prints (of which there were none), gently unwrapped it... then blinked at its contents in consternation. "What the hell is -this-?" he mused aloud. Grissom appeared next to him, nearly startling him out of his skin, and sniffed at the greenish, tarry substance peeling back the waxed paper had revealed. "It's kolto," he said. "Collected resin from a very rare sea plant. It's one of the key ingredients in the manufacture of Miraculon." Greg frowned at it. "That's a weird thing to pay an assassin with." "Not necessarily. Its value density is much higher than cash. The plant it come from grows on only one planet... " Grissom trailed off as a look of dawning realization spread across his face. "Well? Don't keep me in suspense here," Greg prompted him. "What planet?" Grissom turned and looked him in the eye. "Manaan, Greg. Kolto comes from the planet Manaan." The importance of this information seemed lost on Greg; he merely eyed the greenish substance and asked, "So, what, you smoke it?" Grissom, busy scraping a tiny sample off the brick of kolto and into an analysis vial, replied absently, "Only if you want to keep up with Sara for about five minutes, then die of a massive coronary." "Uh... I'll pass on that, I guess." "I need all these bundles processed as soon as possible," Grissom told him as he turned to leave the lab, vial in hand. "With any luck, whoever prepared them got sloppy at least once." "Yessir," Greg acknowledged; then, surveying the grunt work ahead of him, he sighed. Why had field duty looked so much cooler when the others did it? Grissom waylaid Warrick in the hall and handed him the vial. "Our Neo-Soviet mercenary was partially paid in kolto," he said. Warrick regarded the sample vial with interest. "That ain't cheap," he remarked. Grissom nodded. "Kolto exports are very strictly controlled by the government of Manaan, Warrick. Get a spectral analysis of this sample, find out which processing facility it came from, and then see if they've had any go missing lately." He smiled darkly. "For once, the Selkath authorities will be happy to cooperate." "I'm on it," Warrick said, changing course to head for the trace lab. Grissom's next destination was the fingerprint lab, where Sara sat at one of the workbenches, the picture of concentration, working her way methodically through a large stack of currency. "Anything?" he asked from the doorway. She turned on her stool and shrugged, the previous day's awkwardness pushed to the side by her focus on the job at hand. "Nothing yet. Even I'm going to take a while to print 300 100-credit bills. If I go too fast, it just gets powder everywhere." Grissom looked intrigued. "Did you determine this by experimentation?" "You should see my spare bathroom," Sara replied ruefully. "Give me another half an hour." "Fine. Have you seen Catherine?" "Try Ballistics. I think she's still checking in the weapons from that warehouse in the Landing." Catherine was, in fact, not in the ballistics lab; she wasn't on the CSI floor at all. As Grissom spoke, she was walking down the main corridor on the 38th floor, bound for the Chief's office. There was no one in his outer office, which was unsurprising given the hour, but as she entered, she heard voices coming from the inner office. "All I ask," said a woman's voice Catherine didn't recognize, "is five minutes with her. Alone." "You can't break her, Natalia," Gryphon's voice rejoined, sounding patient. "She's not paid for yet." Catherine went to the inner office door, which was open, and looked through. Gryphon was sitting at his desk, looking like he'd slept in his clothes. Standing opposite him was a redheaded woman dressed in snug black tactical gear, a slight flush of emotion - probably anger, Catherine judged - highlighting her high Slavic cheekbones. The redhead - "Natalia", apparently - snorted derisively. "And I suppose," she said sarcastically, "you intend to turn her with your charm and make an upstanding agent of justice out of her." Gryphon shrugged and replied placidly, "It worked on you." Catherine suppressed a laugh. Natalia didn't seem to know quite how to respond; she just stared at him for a moment, trying but failing to form some kind of retort. "Relax, 'Tasha," he said, holding up a conciliatory hand. "I'm not into predatory blondes." If that isn't a cue, Catherine thought. Stepping into the office, she said, "I think I resemble that remark." Natalia turned, one hand automatically straying toward the holstered pistol at her hip. Gryphon just smiled. "Well, every rule has an exception that proves it. Are you still pissed off at me, Catherine?" "No. -Yes-. I'm... we still need to talk." Gryphon shrugged. "By all means. I do all my best apologizing after 3 AM." Then, turning to the redhead, he said, "You can participate in Belova's debriefing, Natalia, but not alone. I want her alive, if for no other reason than Geoff implied we'd kill her for Pribilenkov, and we can't have -that-," he added with a chuckle. "Anyway, Chief Inspector Brass will be asking her some supplementary questions in a few minutes. You're welcome to sit in. You can help us assess whether she's the real deal." Natalia sighed. "Fine. Have it your way - but if she's really a graduate of the Red Room, you endanger anyone you have guarding her." "I... wouldn't worry too much about that, actually," said Gryphon. (Downstairs in Interrogation A, Jackie Chan yawned, then offered the sullenly glowering prisoner a cheerful smile, which was not returned.) Natalia shut the door after her when she went, leaving Gryphon and Catherine alone in his office. "Okay," he said, "let's talk." He got to his feet, holding up a hand, and added, "But not here. I have something I want to show you." Back on the tenth floor, Warrick Brown had just made what could arguably be called the most unexpected discovery of the case so far: the existence of at least one reasonable cop on the planet Manaan. "You understand, Investigator Brown, that this is purely an internal matter and is no business whatsoever of air-breathers," said Peace Officer Tchageth from the console of Warrick's desk phone. "But," the officer went on before Warrick could try remonstrating with him, "just between you, me, and the airlock... a Selkath citizen with whom I believe your department is familiar -did- go missing from the Ministry of State's minimum-security detention facility two weeks ago. As did 150 pounds of first-stage kolto from one of our processing plants." Warrick raised an eyebrow. "This missing citizen wouldn't happen to be named Vasseck Kelshar, would he?" "I believe he would," said Tchageth. "And, unofficially of course, I can tell you that if you find Mr. Kelshar in your city again? You are welcome to keep him. We would, however, appreciate the return of the kolto." "Right now it's evidence," Warrick told him, "but your ministry can file a claim with the IPO to have it turned over once it's released from the evidence stream." "Mm. Well, not really my department anyway," Tchageth remarked. "I just had to mention it for form's sake. And now I bid you good day, sir." With what might have been a fishy smirk, the Selkath added, "I hope your report will note that I was unhelpful." Warrick returned the smirk. "I couldn't have asked for less." "Excellent, excellent. Good hunting, Investigator Brown." Tchageth broke the connection. Chuckling, Warrick got up from his desk and went in search of Grissom. Catherine Willows had never been in the maze of subbasement labs and test facilities that made up the IPO's equipment research and development department before. She'd heard all kinds of stories - legends, really - about what went on down there, and believed about half of them. Now, seeing the place for the first time, she thought she might have to revise that figure upward. Even deserted and dim, it was the kind of place that promised wonders. Clean, gleaming silver corridors stretched for what seemed like miles, obviously overflowing the actual building's footprint many times over. The markings neatly printed on the doors hinted cryptically at scientific marvels and strange purposes - "ANOMALOUS MATERIALS", "HIGH ENERGY PROTON 1". As Gryphon led the way deeper and deeper into the warren, Catherine wondered what in the world could be going on down here that could possibly concern her. She held her peace, though, until Gryphon stopped in front of one of the doors and punched a code into the security keypad next to it. The print on the door read uninformatively, "C/TECH SPEC DEV 4". Beyond the door was a surprisingly unremarkable-looking lab, not unlike the CSI trace lab, albeit with different equipment on the benches and tables. Catherine didn't recognize what most of the stuff in the room was for, apart from the unmistakable shape of a massive armored door, like a bank vault, at the far end of the room. "Okay, I'll bite," she said. "What's down here that has anything to do with me?" Gryphon leaned against the table in the middle of the room and contemplated her a moment before replying. "For a few years now, Skuld's been working on some special equipment projects. One of them was originally envisioned as the next generation of the Lens, but the project's grown in scope a bit since then." With a slightly rueful chuckle, he added, "These things often do." Catherine looked unilluminated. "And... ?" she prompted. "And it's nearly ready for testing." Gryphon turned and went to the vault door, punched a code into a keypad next to it, then peered into the retina scanner that the code caused to deploy next to the pad. This beeped and flickered for a moment, then demanded a spoken keyphrase. (Somewhat to Catherine's confusion, this proved to be "Hello, my name is Werner Brandes.") With those tests passed, the door hissed, outgassing a small cloud of steam, and swung slowly open. A rich but gentle green light shone from beyond the doorway, tinting the small lab with a glow reminiscent of sunlight through leafy trees. Catherine looked at the source of the light, trying to make some sense of what she was seeing, then asked, "... What is it?" "It's sort of... " Gryphon trailed off, then tried again. "Well, we designed the Space Force's next-generation warships so that non-traditional personnel could operate them, and this is sort of the same idea for Special Assignment-level agents. We wanted something that could make a normal person the equivalent of an Expert of Justice without requiring the years of training, invasive augmentive procedures, or both that are normally required. It'll still take a very -special- sort of agent to make it work, and that's by design, but all the qualifications are mental and ethical, not physical or paranormal. "It's taken Skuld fifteen years to develop the basic principles, though she's only been authorized to work on the actual hardware in earnest since May." He gestured into the vault. "This is the prototype. Still incomplete, but you get the basic idea. It'll be ready for field testing in another four or five months." Catherine gazed thoughtfully into the green glow for a few moments, then looked away from it and met Gryphon's eyes, her own faintly incredulous. "And you want -me- to be one of your... 'instant Experts'?" Gryphon smiled. "I want you to have the opportunity... if you want it... to be the -first-." Catherine found that, for the moment, she had nothing to say to that. Warrick found Grissom in the hallway, returning from a fruitless search of the ballistics lab, and buttonholed him near the entrance to Trace. "Hmm. So Kelshar stole as much kolto as he could carry and fled Manaan," Grissom mused upon hearing Warrick's report. "And I'd bet a pretty big stake he used that kolto to hire our ex-MGB friend downstairs to take out Nick," Warrick confirmed. "Revenge for blowing his spy operation a few months back." "Maybe, maybe not," Chief Inspector Brass remarked as he joined them. "Comrade Belova insists she was hired by a human. If this Kelshar guy is involved, he's got a partner." "Or at least a go-between," Warrick pointed out. "A Selkath trying to hire a hit man in this town would stand out like a slot machine in a men's room." "Never been to New Las Vegas, have you," said Brass. "Anyway, a go-between wouldn't have kicked in 30 grand in cash. "That's assuming the cash wasn't also Kelshar's," said Warrick. "He might've sold some of the kolto." "I think that's unlikely, Warrick," Grissom said. "Unprocessed kolto is valuable, but it's difficult to sell. If Kelshar escaped from prison two weeks ago, he hasn't had enough time to set up a sale." "So odds are he has a human partner who does the talking," Warrick concluded. "One with enough of an interest in the matter to contribute his own money," Grissom observed. "Speaking of the money," said Sara from the doorway to Trace, "I know where it came from. You're not gonna -believe- this." Grissom tilted his head. "Do tell. Where -did- it come from?" Sara smiled crookedly and said, "Here." Warrick blinked. "What?" "I didn't find any prints on any of the bills, -but-, when I was checking them for authenticity, one of them turned up a very faint anomalous reading on my 560," Sara said. "I couldn't get a decent enough scan to make anything of it with portable equipment, so I ran a full analysis using the new collider. Turns -out-, our assassin's cash payoff is very slightly radioactive... and the isotopic signature matches the residual coil leakage from that homemade proton accelerator that's locked up in Evidence A. You remember, the guy who thought he was Ray Stantz. So I checked the evidence log, and guess what's supposed to be locked up right next to the accelerator?" Warrick snapped his fingers. "The ransom money from the Del Giorgio case." "Right. So I went and looked. Guess what's not there." "Did you check the bills' nanoserials?" Grissom asked. "I -did- take a class on criminalistics once," Sara replied dryly. "Every one of them's a match. That whole pile of cash came from Evidence A." "So... wait. You're saying this fish guy's accomplice is someone with access to the evidence lockers?" said Brass. "That doesn't make any sense." "I think it does, Jim," Grissom replied with a troubled expression. "Too -much- sense." He turned to Sara. "Do the access logs show who removed the money from lockup?" Sara shook her head. "Whoever it was wasn't clumsy enough to check it out by name. My guess is that they went in with a legitimate, or at least legitimate-looking, request and grabbed the money on the way out. It was in a duffel bag. Assuming you could find a way to remove the security lock on the bag itself, the rest would've been easy, if whoever did it had the brass. So to speak." Brass snorted. "Yeah, I never -heard- that one before." "It gets even better," Greg chipped in as he emerged from the layout room. "There was a lot more than 30 grand in that duffel bag. I should know, I logged it myself. -And-, our fish guy is supposed to have swiped 150 pounds of this kolto stuff?" Warrick nodded. "Well, there was only a hundred pounds of it in those ammo cans." "Which means Kelshar and his theoretical accomplice have enough left to hire at least one more hitter if they want," said Brass. "The game's still on," Sara agreed. "It's not a game, Sara," Grissom said, just a touch sharply. She looked slightly baffled at this rebuke - surely even Grissom knew what a figure of speech was - but before she could say anything, he went on, "Where's Catherine?" "I'm right here. Hey, have you ever been down to the R&D complex? It - ... what's going on? You look like you've seen a ghost." "I have to remove myself from this investigation," Grissom said. "As director of the lab, I'm looking at a major conflict of interest if it turns out someone who works here is involved. I want you to take over." Without further explanation, he turned and walked away, leaving the investigators and Brass all looking at each other blankly. "... Anybody want to guess what -that- was about?" Greg wondered. /* Mission of Burma "That's When I Reach for My Revolver" _Signals, Calls and Marches_ */ Eyrie Productions, Unlimited Once I had my heroes presented Once I had my dreams But all of that is changed now UNDOCUMENTED FEATURES They've turned it inside-out FUTURE IMPERFECT The truth is not that comfortable, no And Mother taught us patience CSI: NEW AVALON The virtues of restraint [108] Upward Mobility And Father taught us boundaries Beyond which we must go The Cast To find the secrets promised us, yeah (in order of appearance) Jim Brass That's when I reach for my revolver Russell Schweickart That's when it all gets blown away Gil Grissom That's when I reach for my revolver Benjamin D. Hutchins The spirit fights to find its way Vision Geoff Depew A friend of mine once told me MATT His one and only aim Sara Sidle To build a giant castle John Gage And live inside his name Rockford Stone, MD Cries and whispers sing in muted pain Warrick Brown Dixie McCall, RN That's when I reach for my revolver Graig tz'An Daarst That's when it all gets blown away Catherine Willows That's when I reach for my revolver Horatio Caine The spirit fights to find its way Barry Allen Calleigh Duquesne Tonight the sky is empty Eric Delko But that is nothing new Allison Cameron, MD Its dead eyes look upon us Albert Robbins, MD And they tell me Yevgeniy Pribilenkov We're nothing Gregory House, MD But slaves Yelena Belova Natalia Romanova That's when I reach for my revolver Jackie Chan (Just slaves) Tchageth That's when I reach for my revolver That's when I reach for my revolver That's when I reach for my revolver Ambulance Chaser That's when I reach for my revolver Benjamin D. Hutchins That's when I reach for my revolver Casting Director (Miami) Chad Collier Special Forces Geoff Depew Pimped Horatio's Ride Janice Barlow General Shiftiness The EPU Usual Suspects "CSI: Crime Scene Investigation" created by Anthony E. Zuiker The night shift will return E P U (colour) 2007