Gallery

[Garfunkel]

Frank Mackney hated days like this, the days where he'd wake up in the
morning to overcast skies. He'd go to work and the gentle breeze would turn
into strong cold winds and when he gets the phone call it'd start to rain.
He knew the punks at the weather control bureau knew what type of day he was
going to have and change the weather accordingly to screw with his head. God
damn pricks.

He stepped out from the black and white squad car and looked around at the
warehouse district of Harry's and decided he'd much rather be back at the
ICC headquarters enjoying a cup of coffee instead of being stuck out here in
the boondocks holding the hands of some local cops. A young lieutenant with
a wet trench coat draped loosely over his shoulders came out of the nearest
warehouse and approached Mackney, clipboard in hand.
"Inspector, we've been waiting for you." The young man extended a hand with
a smile.
Mackney ignored the man's invitation for a handshake, instead he slowly
walked past him to the warehouse he had exited from. "What exactly is the
problem, lieutenant?"
The man hurried up behind Mackney and fell into step. "The body of a woman
was found earlier this morning by a pair of bronto herders. I've got some
officers with them now collecting statements." He took a photo from his
clipboard and handed it over to Mackney.
Mackney briefly looked at the blonde haired, blue eyed solitus girl with a
beaming smile and handed the photo back to the lieutenant. "She's cute."
"Er, was cute sir."
"Was?" Mackney raised an eyebrow.
"It's not a pretty sight I'm afraid. That's why we contacted you to help us
investigate the matter sir. The ICC security at this outpost isn't trained
for this kind of thing."
Mackney stopped just before entering the warehouse and glanced sideways to
the young man. "All ICC security forces are trained to handle homicide
investigations."
The lieutenant cleared his throat and slid the door open for Mackney. "Not
when they are like this, sir."

It took a few seconds for Mackney's eyes to adjust to the darkness of the
warehouse but on the far wall he could clearly see the body of the girl in
question. She was attached to a white painter's canvas and hung on the wall,
naked. Her head had been removed and placed inside her chest cavity that her
arms had been posed to give the impression she was ripping her own chest
open. A forensics officer busied herself taking pictures of the corpse while
humming some pop song and two uniformed officers stood by on guard duty,
neither one of them wanting to look at the girl.

Mackney sighed deeply.
"I told you sir, it's not something we're suited for." The lieutenant
readied his clipboard and started reading off a report. "Victims name is
Melissa Gilmore, age twenty four. She rented a meager little apartment not
too far from here, she worked in a bookshop in Borealis; her boss said she
hasn't reported to work in over a week, I haven't told him she's dead yet."
He flipped to the next page of the report. "She hasn't been on Rubi-Ka for
that long of a time, seems she got stranded here when the Kyr'Ozch decided
to invade. As you can tell she didn't have reclaim insurance. We're
searching her place right now for evidence now, so far no leads on who did
this."

Mackney walked over to the dead girl, the lieutenant was correct about not
being able to handle this type of homicide in these parts. Around here they
were only use to squabbles between traders and herders that very rarely led
to murder, much less a mutilation like this one.
"Fascinating huh?" The forensics officer removed the ear buds of her music
player and grinned at him.
"Excuse me?" Mackney asked, half appalled.
"Sorry. I'm trained to not see the human aspect of these things. What I
meant was who ever did this did a very efficient job of it." She walked over
to the body and ran a finger along the edge of the girls opened ribcage.
"This was cut cleanly, almost surgically, there is also something missing."
"Her organs?"
"Well those too, but there is no blood. Whomever did this drained her of her
blood first, I've found evidence of bruises around the veins of the girls
arms and legs suggesting he pumped it out before operating on her." She
turned her head back to grin at Mackney. "Leaves us less of a mess to clean
up eh?"
Mackney narrowed his brow at her. "Anything else you found while admiring
our killer's handy work miss?"
She took a pen from her pocket and used it raises the upper lip of the
victim. The girls mouth had a metal plate fitted to her upper and lower
jaws, riveted into place to keep her mouth shut. "I'm not sure why he did
this, from the stress marks around the riveting I'm saying she was trying
hard to open her mouth to scream; which suggest he kept her alive for at
least some of the procedure and didn't want a pesky thing such as her
pleading for her life to bother him." She wiped her pen off with a rag and
placed it back in her pocket. "I'll know more when we get her in for a full
autopsy."
Mackney nodded. "Send me a report when you're done."
She gave him a playful salute and went back to photographing the body.
Mackney went back to the lieutenant who was idly chatting with the guards.
"How many people have seen this body, Lieutenant?"
"Just us in here, the two herders that found her and the officers that
arrived on the scene when we got the call."
"Tell them to keep quiet about this, even the bronto herders. Last thing I
need is a media circus giving whoever did this more fame then he or she
deserves."
The young man nodded "Understood sir."

Mackney stepped back out into the rain and back to the waiting squad car. It
always had to rain on days like this. "God damn pricks.." he muttered to
himself as he thrusted his hands deep into his pockets.

[Garfunkel]

The music had gone silent and the clubs lights raised to give the cleaning crews some since of the damage the party goers had done to their previous nights work. Julia waited on the front steps of Eden her arms wrapped tightly around her to help keep out the early morning chill, this was made more difficult since the light fabric she wore did nothing to retain her body’s own heat, her gray Opifex skin was turning even paler.

Lizzy stumbled out of the club, drunk and laughing totally ignorant of the morning temperatures she seemed more content with the sleazy opifex man who had his arm over her shoulders tugging at the thin bra strap. The man had already gotten her out of her dress, the bastard couldn’t even wait to get her home before he paraded her around naked in the streets. Lizzy slapped his hand away playfully and moved to kiss the man on the cheek; his name was Sebastian, Julia wasn’t aware the man had a last name nor did she care very much. She didn’t have to know what his name was to hate him; Sebastian, or the pig as Julia preferred to call him, was a self proclaimed social elite which meant he had lots of money and lots of nasty habits involving young girls.
“Come on Lizzy, it’s late and we’ve got to get home.” Julia reached out to her friend, trying to pull her out from under the arm of the opifex man. She resisted and pulled away sharply.
“Nah uh.. Sebastian has invited me back to his place.” She giggled drunkenly.
“Why not come back to my suite in Lush with us, I sure wouldn’t mind sharing my bed with two lovely ladies.” He grinned at her with a disgusting opifex smile.
Julia’s stomach curdled. “I’d rather be screwed by a rhino man.”
“Come on Julia, it’ll be fun. I promise.” Pleaded her friend, too drunk to care.
“Yeah sweetheart, I’ll make it fun.”
She reached out for Lizzy once more but she turned from her hand dragging along the sleazy with her. “I’ll see you tomorrow then Julia.. Sebastian promised me a ride in his yalm.” The two left her standing alone in cold, laughing, joking, and groping each other through the streets of Omni Entertainment.



---


Julia walked slowly through Omni Ent the walk would help get some of the drinks and stims out of her system before she got home to her mother’s inspection. Her mother did every drug known to man, heaven forbid if her daughter even sampled them at parties; there house was in the northern slums, the sewer district as it was more commonly known, surrounded by junkies and pushers. A fine place to raise a child, Julia wanted to escape from that place for as long as she remembered; but at the end of each night she would return home, check to she if her mother wasn’t OD’ed or that if one of her clients hadn’t tried to kill her instead of paying for the sexual services.

She got to the northern gates that let her into the sewer district, the two guards knew her and signaled her through the metal gates without any hassle. The world behind her was a clean and brightly lit place, she moved forward into the slums where trash littered the streets and the only light was from barrel fires some residences used to keep warm or cook the rats they caught.

She left her best friend with that jerk, Julia kept telling herself she should have went with them to keep Lizzy safe; in all honest she wish she went with them to keep herself from having to venture through these ruins, not many would bother the girls if they were together, drunk and high or not. Alone she was vulnerable.

Here she walked fast and kept her eyes cast down at her feet, making eye contact with people in this place was sometimes a sentence for death. It was either survival of the fittest or survival of the most deranged around here, Julia didn’t want to find out which one it was. She felt something move behind her and she picked up her pace, wishing she took a cloak with her tonight her half naked body made her a luscious target for any would be rapist.

She found her apartment building, and stepped inside quickly, slamming the door shut behind her. The lights in the building’s lobby were dim and fading, power to the building was always shabby but the landlord didn’t care as long as the building was still standing and he got rent for the rooms it would stay that way. Julia leaned on the doors and breathed heavily, the scare had forced her down off her high and her body screamed for more.

Julia stood against the door for a few minutes, listening if whatever she heard hadn’t followed her and to let her body’s pain subside. She stumbled towards the stairway, taking the elevator was the same as playing Russian roulette, the bulbs of the light fixtures lining the stairwell had all been smashed out by vandals months ago; the landlord told them he wouldn’t replace them until who ever did it confessed and paid to replace them themselves.

Tomorrow night, she told herself, she wouldn’t go out and Lizzy would be left on her own. She would stay home watching the grid feeds and block out the sounds of her mother’s moans and cries as she made love for money. There was a noise behind her again, this time clearer, the sound of metal clicking and grinding against each other; a cold hand reached from behind her and covered her mouth. Even if someone could hear her screams they would be useless, it was common in this district and people learned to ignore it, she felt a sharp prick at the base of her spine and darkness washed over her.