“Really? I’ve never heard about any of this before.”
“That’s my point, Lochlan. No one has. I only came across it when I was putting together the profile on Hunter and Ripsaw for submittal so they could become instructors. I had a reason to go looking, and I can assure you, there was a very strange set of coincidences surrounding the same knife for nearly thirty years.”
“So you’re saying that we could be facing a similar issue with, what, a delayed full activation of the Ch05En gene? Double activation doesn’t really make sense, of course.”
“That’s what I’m saying, yes. Plenty of strange things happen that nobody hears about. I’m ready to believe this is just another one of those things.”
The car began to slow after exiting the highway and turning right onto a road that badly needed a new coat of tar. “I’m not convinced, Khard. I think you’re reaching.”
“Maybe I am,” the older Agent said, shifting in his seat to better absorb the bouncing from their vehicle. “But it’s what I’ve got right now. It’s that, or O-Rell’s got a twin we don’t know about. That’s a tough pill to swallow, though, with the records going back as far as they do. According to his profile, he was an orphan, and an only child.”
“Well, let’s see what they have to tell us. Maybe there’s something substantial we’re missing regarding the overall timeline.”
This is it. This is the part we like.
Well then relax and let me tell it.
The bumpy road eventually turned left, morphing into one big dirt lane with colorful flowers on either side. The car moved slowly, working to make sure it didn’t kick up too much dust so its sensors wouldn’t be clouded, its programming also designed to move slowly through dirt to prevent a dangerous blowout. Lochlan and Khard looked through the windshield, and spotted the Halley’s property not much farther ahead. Sure enough, both of the Agents could already perceive, less than a hundred yards away, the nesting of flowers where the picture of O-Rell had been taken. The Halleys had managed to create a rainbow effect with the petals, with deep red flowers that grew along the side of the dirt road the Agents traveled on. Those lead eventually into brightly colored yellows and whites, some of which were the same as those in the pictures the Agents carried. Then there were soft purples and blues, oranges, and even a few green flowers in between. The house on the Halley’s property was tiny in comparison to the surroundings, the lush landscape more suited to a mansion than the shack the Agents were being brought to.
The Agents’ car came to a stop after driving through a wall of hedges that sectioned off the property, a wooden archway overhead. There was a small patch of asphalt, clearly for cars to park themselves in, though the rest of the immediate area was covered in thick grass. To their surprise, Lochlan and Khard saw a police cruiser after they had passed through the hedges. Greeted by no one, the Agents exited the car and walked over to knock on the door, then waited for an answer. When it didn’t come, and after looking to Khard for confirmation, Lochlan grabbed the handle and let him and the older Agent in.
The door to the Halley’s house opened into a den area, clearly designed for consultation. Two comfortable couches were to the immediate right of the door, sitting on top of plush carpeting that pushed back as you walked on it. In between the couches was a long, granite table with huge books on top, one of them opened and showing arrangements of flowers and color schemes. There was a fireplace set into the farthest wall of the room with a few spider webs in the back of it, though Lochlan’s upgraded eyes couldn’t see any spiders.
After waiting a moment in the front room, Lochlan and Khard decided to take a quick survey of the area, Khard calling out to see if anyone was inside. They walked from the front room and through a wall of hanging beads into a kitchen area, the décor changing almost immediately from the Halley’s business into their home. The hanging beads seemed to section off not only the swap in decorations, but the change in smell as well, as the lingering aroma of potpourri was quickly replaced with the assaulting smell of damp wood that old houses can sometimes have. It seemed to Lochlan like a pipe had burst at some point and the Halleys had never replaced the untreated paneling.
Lochlan and Khard waited again for a moment, standing in the middle of the kitchen, before finally hearing someone. A middle-aged woman, likely the same woman Khard had made their appointment with, was walking from around the side of the house and making her way to the back door that would lead her into the kitchen. She was walking with another, slightly older woman, who the agents quickly identified as Chief Rainch. The woman stopped speaking to Chief Rainch as she stepped inside.
“Oh!” She said, startled to see the two robotic men. “Oh, no. What time is it? Have y’all been waitin’ long?”
“We have not,” Khard replied, introducing himself and Lochlan. “And hello again, Chief Rainch. We did not expect to see you again so soon.”
“Lucy here called me over,” Chief Rainch replied. “It’s good y’all are here, I didn’t feel like waiting around much longer. There’s somethin’ you’d better see.”
Lochlan and Khard followed Chief Rainch outside, Lucy Halley trailing closely behind. The four of them walked around the backside of the house to the left, where they had about twenty feet of clearance in the form of soft grass, the multicolored field of flowers close enough that it nearly masked the smell of the damp wood. Lochlan could almost see the part of the house that had the water damage, though it had clearly been painted over a few times. He had to really focus to identify where the structural integrity had waned, eyeing that there had likely been some kind of internal leak underneath the upstairs shower. As the four of them turned around the corner of the house and reached the far side, Lochlan could see what Chief Ranch wanted to show them.
The pristine grass surrounding the house had been dug up on the side, and there was now a large hole leading under the Halleys’ home. The soft dirt had obviously been clawed at, as if done by an animal, though the hole was large enough for two men to fit through. It looked wide enough by Lochlan’s estimation for even a small bear, perhaps.
“What happened?” Khard asked.
“Don’t rightly know.” Lucy replied.
“Do you know the when?”
“Some time last night. I come out here this morning and seen the hole. Had two appointments I couldn’t miss, but I called the Chief here in between ‘em, after speaking with y’all this mornin’.”
“Chief Rainch,” Lochlan said. “Have you inspected the hole at all?” Lochlan walked over and squatted down, keeping the grass off of his pants. A setting turned on in Lochlan’s eyes, which reflected the light around him off of his irises, and shone it into the hole like a tiny flashlight. He took a quick look around, but didn’t see anything more than dirt and the jacks designed to keep sagging floors from falling in. It was, for the most part, a simple crawl space, filled with just as many bugs as he had imagined. Then the smell caught up with Lochlan–the same pungent, rotting-wood scent he had started to catch inside. It seemed to be coming from the second story and was permeating from underneath the home as well.
“Didn’t see much of nothin’,” Chief Rainch said to Lochlan. “You seein’ anything?”
“I am not,” Lochlan replied. “Miss Halley-”
“Please, you can call me Lucy.”
Lochlan stood up to address the woman directly. “Lucy, are you aware of the extensive water damage to your home?”
Lucy seemed startled at the question, as if it were an accusation.
“I don’t mean to offend you,” Lochlan said.
“I, uh… Yes, I’m aware. The house isn’t in great shape, but it’s just old, is all.”
“In any case, I don’t see anything in there,” Lochlan replied, thinking it best not to press the woman.
“Ah, well I do see something,” Khard said. The older agent had walked the twenty feet to the edge of the grass, and was looking around the field of flowers. There were spaces to walk, neat little
rows separating each patch of color, and Khard quickly began to step in the places where he wouldn’t crush Lucy’s hard work. The rest of the group followed, Lochlan also identifying what Khard had caught sight of, with Lucy audibly gasping as they neared. Chief Rainch made a clicking noise with her tongue as she eyed it as well.
It was the area where the photo of O-Rell had been taken. There was no mistaking the patch of flowers being correct. The picture had covered an area of approximately eight square feet, and the whole lot had been dug up in the same fashion as the side of Lucy’s house.
“Oh no!” Lucy yelled. “Oh, no, no… Oh, dang it! They tore up all the roots and…” Lucy sighed. “Alright. Can’t nothin’ come from cryin’ over it, I guess.”
“Any idea when this happened?” Khard asked Lucy.
“Must have been around the same time as the hole on the side of the house. I normally do a walkthrough in the fields around dusk, and this was different yesterday. If it happened this mornin’, I must be deaf.”
“I see. Lochlan, you picking anything up?”
Lochlan’s eyes had been running various scans since their group had walked over, looking for anything that might stand out—down to the size of the claws or tools used to dig up the area. He found nothing. Whatever had damaged the soil had done so chaotically, scooping away whatever they wanted in one fell swoop. It looked like it could have been done by any number of tools, but the soil was so rich that he couldn’t tell if the metal particles he was seeing were left over from whomever had vandalized the area or from tools that Lucy had used.
“Nothing,” Lochlan said. “The area is just as clean as the side of the house. Lucy, you’re sure you didn’t hear anything last night?”
“Not a thing,” the woman said. Khard looked to Lochlan to ensure that the younger Agent had finished surveying and taking pictures of the area, and Lochlan acknowledged that he had. The older Agent led the group back inside, where they sat down at the table in the kitchen. The fresh aroma of moldy wood was there again to greet them as they entered the room.
“How has business been lately?” Khard asked. “Anything strange or out of the ordinary happen within the last week or so?”
“Ah, nothin’ that I can recall. I’ve been a little short-handed this month, since my husband is down in Baton Rouge visiting some family. His ma is ill, we’re not sure she’s got much longer.”
“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Khard said. “Who came by this morning? Who had scheduled appointments?”
Lucy took a small electronic notebook, not unlike the notebooks the Agents carried, out from her pocket, then pushed a button to turn on the screen. She tapped another button to open her notebook’s access to other notebooks nearby, the Agents’ machines quickly syncing with her device. “I’ll send the information now. The first was a nice young couple, Steven and Marion. They came up from Mt. Olive, just a ways south of here. The other appointment was a widower and her new beau, who had come down from Unionville. Neither of ‘em are more’n twenty, thirty minutes from here.”
“Does most of your business come from out of town?”
“Oh, most certainly. Choudrant has expanded some over the years, but the population ain’t here for a business like mine. I make most of my appointments through my website, and from trade shows, where I take a lot of my flowers. My growin’ method is patented, you see, so I get out to the trade shows to try to stir up business from florists. We have people come from as far as El Dorado, or Pine Bluff, all the way from Arkansas.”
“Do you typically conduct all of your business in your front room? You didn’t walk around the grounds with either of your appointments this morning?”
“I certainly did, with the older woman. She was very particular, and had a lot of questions about how we could set up her reception on the front lawn, and where she could take the best pictures. She was one of them women with a very firm idea in her mind on what her wedding was gon’ look like. You know the type. We get the best afternoon lightin’ this time of year on that side of the house,” Lucy said, pointing to where the hole was on the side of the property, “And she just ‘bout lost her mind when she saw the side of my house had been dug up. I reckon I might have lost the sale if not for her fiancée, who was quick to come to my aid. We managed to convince her that I’d have it fixed in no time, long before she was even gonna be puttin’ her dress on. I called Chief Rainch first thing when I saw the hole, and she showed up just as the couple was leavin’. She’s only been here, what, ‘bout forty minutes?”
“About that,” Chief Rainch replied. “Y’all showed up just as I was about finished starin’ into that hole.”
“Hm. Very interesting,” Khard said. “Well, thank you very much for your time, Lucy. And it was nice to see you again, Chief Rainch. I believe we have all of the information that can be gathered at this time, unless either of you have anything else you would like to share?”
“Well, no, I can’t rightly think of anything. Do you have any idea of what’s going on?” Lucy asked.
“It’s obvious there was something here someone wanted to ensure was not found. I think Chief Rainch will agree with me when I say that it seems to be related to why we came out here.”
“Definitely,” Chief Rainch said. “Looked like somebody came by to collect whatever O-Rell might have left behind.”
“Yes, as well as whatever was on the side of the house seems to have been dug up.”
“O-Rell?” Lucy asked. “What do the Capes have to do with this? You think it was them that vandalized my property?”
“Impossible at this point to say who it was,” Khard said. “But I don’t think it was an accident. Lucy, do you have a way to get down to see your husband? Just for a few days.”
“I… sure, I do. But do you think that’s really necessary?” The lady Halley wore a concerned look, her hands up at her mouth.
“I’m not sure it’s safe for you here. Whoever dug up your property may likely come back, especially if they know you’ve talked with us.”
“It’s alright, Lucy,” Chief Rainch broke in. “I’ll take you down to meet up with George. Go gather up your things. we can head out as soon as you’re ready.”
“Oh… well, alright, then. I guess if y’all think it’s best. I was probably going to have to cancel the rest of my appointments until we got the grass fixed anyhow. What do y’all think I should do about that?”
“We’ll let you know as soon as it’s okay to call a contractor in. I’ve sent word in to have your soil examined, should only take a few days,” Khard replied.
“Mmm, I guess that settles it. I’ll go’n get my things.”
Lucy walked upstairs to begin the process of gathering her belongings, with Khard, Lochlan, and Chief Rainch standing to leave as well.
“So where to from here?” Chief Ranch asked. “You two have a chance to talk to O-Rell’s team?”
“We did.” Khard said. “There is one other place we still have not gone. I believe we’ll be heading there from here.”
“Well alright. Don’t let me stop you. I’ll be back in six or seven hours, depending on traffic, but if y’all need anything, you give my daughter a call at the station. She’ll be there all night.”
“We certainly will. Safe travels, Chief Rainch. See you soon.”
Lochlan and Khard left Lucy’s house and stepped back into their automated vehicle, which let out a BING to let them know it was low on battery. Khard popped the trunk and flicked the switch to activate the solar cells on the roof, and the car began to charge. After he input the new coordinates and got back in, he and Lochlan began to make their way to their next destination.
It was time to check out the warehouse.
It took nearly half an hour, as the warehouse district was located back in Choudrant proper. Finally, the Agents arrived at the location where, only a few days before, O-Rell and his team had fought with what was described as a huge collection of robots. Lochlan stepped out of the car and pressed on
various points in his arms, and one spot on his kneecap, which activated a few of his choice modifications designed for investigating scenes where battles had taken place. One of his modifications allowed him to perceive strong magnetics and nearby sources of radio waves, something he’d designed based on available technology in the communicators that Capes carried with them. Other modifications allowed him to retrace the path of projectiles, or determine the flight path of bullets fired from afar. To Lochlan’s surprise, Khard also began to turn on a few of his own modifications, which had been hidden from Lochlan until that point. In spite of himself, Lochlan stood staring at the older Agent.
“Don’t be so surprised,” Khard said. “The mods are the best part of working at The Control. I think we both know that.” Khard squeezed his nose and his legs rumbled as he took a few steps this way and that. Lochlan could see that the older Agent’s legs had become stronger, perhaps reinforced in some way. “You ready to go take a look?” Khard asked.
“I am. Please, after you,” Lochlan replied.
The two agents marched toward the farthest warehouse on the left, which openly showed structural damage. Lochlan could already see the door on the side that Gil and Frikshen had mentioned, though it had been boarded up with plywood.
“Looks like someone has been here,” Lochlan said.
“Not likely,” Khard replied. “I’d bet you the plywood was automated. A lot of these buildings have that kind of thing built in to help dissuade that whole ‘broken windows theory’ nonsense.”
“Really? Sounds like a good idea.”
“Sure, until you realize it means that the people who own these buildings were prepared for there to be a time when people couldn’t pay to rent them. Can’t say I agree with that.”
The Agents approached the side door, with Khard taking the point. The older Agent searched for a moment along the sides of the plywood, looking for the staples or nails that would have been holding it in place if it had been set manually. When he couldn’t find them, he took a small step back. Then, putting as much of his bodyweight into the blow as he could, Khard kicked the piece of wood in its center, his dress pants stretching as he did so. Khard’s leg passed through the wood, splintering it inward, and he quickly followed up by grabbing the broken pieces in each hand and pulling. The wooden door ripped out of the metal frame while his leg remained in the air. Khard stepped inside and two panels at the top of his head flipped open, little lights showing themselves underneath so he could see in the darkness. “I’ll look over here,” he said to Lochlan. “Are you fine in the dark?”
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