Side Story #1 - Colt - Page 10

<<Page 9 || Side Story Table of Contents || Page 11>>

Colt took a deliberate breath. 'Okay, so how does Rex know that Robert Plenty is a fake name?'

'He said he was in the middle of investigating the name when he was killed. It was apparently linked with multiple shady businesses, but the actual person that it belonged to remained unclear despite all his searching. He hadn't even been able to find a state-issued I.D. for the guy.'

'Hmm.' Back in Atreya, it had been relatively difficult to get that kind of information. The government there was usually a bit more protective of the average citizen's privacy, which Colt could appreciate on some level, even if it did make his job as a cop more difficult. He'd suspected for some time, however, that the reasons behind that difficulty in Atreya were less than noble. More than likely, the governmental concerns over privacy were meant to provide refuge for foreigners who wanted to "invest" in Atreyan assets. Whether that investment involved illegal activity or not--well, a court would ultimately have to be the one to decide that.

Here in Snider, it seemed likely that something like a state-issued I.D. should have been pretty easy for Rex to get his hands on, so the fact that he didn't might've meant that the dead sheriff had a good point.

Colt was reluctant to think that the guy might've actually been a half-way decent investigator, but fair was fair, he supposed. He could give Rex a modicum of credit--for now, at least. Colt was certain that there would still be plenty more opportunities to uncover astonishing levels of incompetence on the sheriff's part before all was said and done with this investigation.

'You shouldn't assume it's a man just because the name is masculine,' said Colt. 'Might be less likely, but it could still be a woman.'

'I suppose so,' said Bohwanox.

'What are the names of these "shady businesses" you mentioned?'

'I haven't been able to get those kinds of details out of him yet. Rex is becoming increasingly difficult to understand.'

'You could try to find a reaper for him.'

'Hmm. Yes, that is an option. Problem is, I've only met one other in the capital so far, and I'm not sure I can find her before Rex's soul becomes unusable. I would have to leave and go search for her right now in order to even have a chance, which means I might miss important information here at the crime scene.'

Colt frowned to himself.

'Plus, I have a feeling that she would just refuse to revive him, anyway. Even from the few exchanges we shared, she seemed pretty set on maintaining her neutrality.'

Not very encouraging information. 'Have you told her about aberrations?'

'No, I haven't. I'm not sure if she knows about them or not.'

Colt's expression only continued to sour as he deliberated.

'What do you want me to do?' asked Boh. 'You're the ex-cop. I'll defer to your opinion on this one. Should I leave the crime scene now and try to go find her? Or should I stay here and keep observing?'

He grit his teeth. This decision would, without a doubt, completely change the course of the investigation. Having Rex alive would obviously be a huge benefit to finding the murderer. Even if the chances were slim, it might just be worth trying anyway.

But then again...

'Where is Rex's body, right now?' said Colt.

'They bagged it up and shipped off to Lagoroc for autopsy already.'

'So if he were revived, he would wake up in a morgue, then.'

'Yes.'

'Would that be a problem?'

'Oh, most definitely.'

Colt's expression flattened. 'Would it be a problem that we wouldn't be able to deal with?'

'Hey, don't ask me. That would depend primarily on how Rex handled things.'

'Well, I'm sure he'd be motivated to find his killer.'

'Sure. But he might also have a hard time if he wanted to return to his old life.'

'WE might have a hard time if he wanted to do that, too.'

'Yes.'

From what Colt and Bohwanox had been able to tell, the general populace in Snider did indeed know about the existence of superhuman beings around the world, much like Atreya did. Unlike Atreya, however, they seemed to have a stronger conception of reapers being connected to them. It still wasn't quite accurate, though, because they were under the impression that reapers were government-manufactured tools of war, and it was still a matter of debate as to whether or not these invisible beings and their accompanying superhuman thralls even had any intelligence or will of heir own.

Even after living here for months, Colt didn't feel like he fully understood Sniderian views on the matter. They were surprisingly conspiratorial, but there was a rather large degree of variance in it. Apparently, Bohwanox had heard some people talk about how the superhumans were actually just humanoid robots being piloted remotely by real people in some government facility somewhere. Another theory was that superhumans ARE the government and that everyone else had the order backwards--that the superhumans had created every government that had ever existed since ancient times and secretly ruled the entire world.

It hadn't taken long for Colt to grow sick of listening to these theories.

'Just stay on the crime scene,' he told Boh.

'Alright, then.'

And Colt waited, but he was surprised to find that the reaper didn't have anything more to say about his decision. He was fully aware of how heartless it might seem, depriving Rex of the chance to live again as a servant.

The more he'd thought about it, though, the more he'd come to believe that a second servant in Orden could become a serious problem for him and the twins. If he allowed Rex to become a servant, the man would be in a position to cause all sorts of trouble for him.

Perhaps that was selfish of him, but Colt didn't really care. Stephanie and Thomas' well-being was the only thing that mattered. Sure, maybe Rex could've become an ally, but it wasn't worth the risk. The situation was still perfectly safe and manageable, at the moment. There was no need to rock the boat.

After that, the conversation soon ended, and Colt returned to his cabin to mull over his next move. There was still quite a bit of daylight left, and with his new information on hand, should he really waste time waiting around for nightfall?

Janet Beaumont was probably going to be tied up with the police for a while longer still, so talking to her today was out. Searching her apartment while she was out was probably a good way to get mauled by that dog of hers, but maybe it would be worth the trouble anyway? Eh, probably not. She seemed the least likely of the four names Boh had told him about.

Leonard Pink was still on the crime scene, so he wasn't an option, either. Keith Hopper was already going to be looked into by Boh tomorrow, and "Robert Plenty" was nowhere to be found.

Yeah.

After a while, he decided to hunker down for the rest of the day and keep waiting for nightfall.

When it arrived, he consulted the reaper one more time, who told him the coast was indeed clear. Colt gathered the twins up again, got in the Pontiac, and made for the sheriff's house. Bohwanox gave him directions, but Colt didn't need them. He remembered where the man's house was from his scouting. Knowing the residence of all the local law enforcement had been a priority for him.

He took as many back roads as possible and made sure to park a good distance away from the house, not wanting to leave any unexplained tire tracks behind for the police to notice later.

He asked Bohwanox to watch over the kids in the car for him while he approached the building on foot. Thankfully, it was a warm night, so he wouldn't have to worry about them getting cold.

'I'll warn you if I sense any other souls in the vicinity,' said Boh.

'Thanks.'

When he finally reached the house, he found the front door sealed with police tape, as expected. Breaking it would obviously alert the investigators to his presence when they returned tomorrow or the next day, so Colt decided to search for another way in.

He was very mindful of his footprints. The dirt around the house was both soft and thick enough that even a single step left a clear impression of the bottom of his shoe, but the capital cops had also left plenty of tracks of their own all over the place, so it was a simple matter to hide his footprints among theirs. And in the few instances when he wanted to go off the beaten path, he made sure to brush his prints away with a leafy tree branch that he'd picked up way back where he'd parked the car.

Fingerprints were another concern, of course, but a lesser one. According to Boh, they had already dusted for prints from the scene, so they wouldn't do it again unless they had a specific reason to do so, but he still wanted to be cautious. He was very aware, however, that merely wearing gloves was not a perfect solution to this problem as many criminals seemed to think. Gloves left prints, too, in their own way. Very thin gloves could even leave fingerprints anyway, along with evidence of the type of glove being worn--which really just doubled the amount of evidence against the culprit, when one thought about it.

Technically, since his fingerprints shouldn't be logged into the Sniderian law enforcement database, there was no chance that the capital cops could get a match unless they somehow had access to the Atreyan database--which was unlikely, given Atreyan laws regarding these types of things. So yes, Colt could theoretically go around this crime scene and touch whatever the hell he wanted without worrying about his identity being discovered, but he would still be giving his prints to the Sniderian police for no reason, and he very much did NOT want to do that. In the hopefully unlikely event that he ended up becoming involved in some other criminal activity in the future, he definitely didn't want his fingerprints to already be on file.

All these concerns made the simple task of getting into the premises rather difficult, to say the least. All the doors and windows were locked or tape-sealed or both. He briefly humored the idea of climbing up onto the goddamn roof and trying to get in via the fucking chimney, but if the capital cops had done their job, then even the fireplace should have had a seal on it from the inside.

He sighed. It was starting to look like he might have to break in. He didn’t like using such a conspicuous method, but if he could make it seem like a natural occurrence, like a fallen tree or something, then it might just work.

‘You could try tunneling your way in,’ said Bohwanox after being consulted another time.

Colt’s expression shrunk, because it didn’t sound like he was trying to make a joke. ‘Do you have any idea how long that would take? And what would I do when I had to dig through a concrete wall to make it inside?’

The reaper chortled. ‘Did you forget that you have the power to carve a path of destruction wherever you want?'

In truth, he kind of had. ‘Hmm.’

He set to work. He started the tunnel from quite far away so that anyone who was just walking the grounds immediately around the house wouldn’t be able to spot it. His destruction power wasn’t especially well-developed, but it made the job go pretty quickly--certainly much faster than a shovel. In twenty minutes, he was looking at the concrete wall of the house’s basement.

<<Page 9 || Side Story Table of Contents || || Page 11>>

These Side Story pages are released each week on Sunday at 6 pm EST.
However, they are released four weeks earlier over on Patreon, along with many extra pages of the main story.
Thanks for reading, everyone.

Page 2006

Asad’s tattooed face scrunched up a little as he tried to hold on to his thoughts. “About what?” he asked, not wanting to complain.

The reaper hovered there for a moment, looking at him. ‘Ah… you were doing your thing again, weren’t you?’

“My thing?”

‘Your “not meditation” thing. Whatever you want to call it.’

“I believe it is called ‘thinking.’ Perhaps you should try it sometime.”

‘Ouch. Someone’s grouchy.’

He took a breath, knowing Qorvass hadn’t deserved that comment. “I apologize. I didn’t mean that…”

‘Yes, I should hope not. Would you rather be left alone, right now? I don’t mind leaving. Or telling Haqq to go plow himself. In fact, I would enjoy that.’

Asad rubbed his neck and breathed a faint laugh. “No, that is alright. I enjoy your company, Qorvass.”

‘Oh. And now you’re being nice? I’m getting some mixed signals here.’

Asad moved on to rubbing his forehead. “Well, maybe the signals in my head are mixed to begin with.”

‘Hmm.’ The reaper floated closer. The flaming wings of Qorvass’ scorpionfly form beat rapidly and constantly but still without making any noise, even as he moved. ‘What were you thinking about, then? Maybe talking it through with me will help.’

He gave the reaper a look, considering. He supposed it couldn’t hurt. “Do you remember that orbital materialization technique that Hector Goffe came up with in Babbadelo?”

‘Um. Yes. THAT’S what you were thinking about?’

He decided to ignore that question. “Did you think anything was strange about it?”

‘Ah. Sure. I thought it was strange that such a young servant could come up with something like that.’

“Anything else?”

The reaper hesitated. ‘Are we turning this into a game? I would prefer you just tell me what you are getting at. Is there something YOU found particularly strange about it?’

Asad decided to oblige. “I think it might be impossible.”

Page 2005

When he had first met him, if Asad was being brutally honest, he hadn't thought much of the boy. A mere child, tagging along because of a tangentially-related reaper.

But now?

Now Asad found himself wondering if Hector might just be the most formidable of all his allies.

He knew how young the boy really was, but perhaps that didn't matter as much as he had previously thought. Hector's list of accomplishments spoke for itself. At Marshrock. At Dunehall. At Babbadelo. And apparently also at Himmekel and Capaporo, too. Even now, he still wasn’t sure he believed half of what he had been told about those last two.

The accomplishment that was occupying Asad’s thoughts the most, however, was the one that occurred at Babbadelo. Others who recounted the young lord's exploits might not even mention it, but to Asad's mind, the invention of that orbital materialization technique was no minor thing.

That technique had been bothering him ever since Hector first explained it to him and Zeff, but he had never been quite sure why. There was just something about it. Something subtle, yet still somehow fundamental, perhaps.

With everything else going on lately and all his other concerns weighing on him, Asad hadn’t been able to give that technique the amount of analytical consideration that he wanted--the amount that it probably deserved. He’d discussed it a bit with Zeff, but the man had probably been even more distracted than he was.

But here and now, as he held his hand out in front of his face and practiced the technique for himself, watching a pair of quartz cubes float around his open palm, Asad finally had the opportunity to really stop and dwell on it for a while.

And after a time, to his own surprise, he began to gain an inkling of what his problem with it might be.

So it was extra unfortunate that Qorvass phased through the wall and interrupted his train of thought. ‘Hey, Haqq wants to talk to you,’ the reaper said in Valgan.