Night Shift

Volume 3, Episode 2

Thursday, November 18th, 1999.  It's after midnight in the night shift, and the locker is a mess.  A large PETA-Green Peace-Earth Fist! alliance rally in downtown Neopolis the previous afternoon had ended with some rowdiness and public disturbance, so many demonstrators were thrown in lock-up.  However, with the SOB and SWAT teams' big bust at Archie Nemesis, turbulent animal rights activists are no longer a priority.  The desk personnel is frantically checking backgrounds, working files to release most of the activists, and identify the worst of the new arrests.  Alas, The Slicer somehow managed to evade arrest. 

Segama completes her initial examination, first on scene and then in the lab.  She reports that the victim was killed elsewhere and dumped at the abandoned school.  She was killed with a very sharp knife, but the evidence indicates that many different blades were used for the cuts and mutilations.  DNA samples are sent for processing, and Mortis' body is impounded as evidence!  Mortis asks coroner Charon not to dissect it...

Therius thinks he recognizes the Caligulator's style of killing, and suspects the body was left there as a "calling card."  He requests the Caligulator's file from Grand Central, but expects little cooperation. 

Archie Nemesis is put in "the box" and Johnny takes the first crack at questioning him.  Archie says he never saw The Slicer's face, but that he had a low, hoarse voice.  Archie looks pretty confident that he will be release; he keeps referring to the fights as "friendly sparring events."  After Mortis is done, Therius informs Archie that he intends to have him charged as accessory to murder.

Eulalia Segama discovers that her childhood friend Amiko Itame was among the demonstrators arrested the afternoon before.  Amiko and her supporters are demanding that the Old Nazi files on the fate of talking animals in 1950s Neopolis be reopened.  They also want A.S.T.R.O. Labs' experimental practices to be examined.  Eulalia offers to get her friend out, but Miko decides to show solidarity and stay with her team until they can all be released together.

Therius decides to use his magical amulet to time-travel back to the time of the body dump; he wakes Captain Traynor to get authorization to put in the request with the court.  Judge Fred authorizes observation, but no intervention; he emphatically doesn't want the the paperwork for a timeline split.  Therius also has Eulalia Segama track property ownership and tax records for the old school. 

Therius invokes the power of Selene's amulet and disappears.  Moments later, however, he reappears — dishevelled, covered in garbage, stumbling.  He waves his amazed team members off; "It's a long story," he mumbles, and heads off to the lab.

The rest of the team continues to process the suspects and evidence.  Some people initially claimed to be The Slicer, and some fist fights even break out over who is the "real" Slicer, but once pictures of the dead body start to circulate, the glory hounds rapidly retract their boasts.  One man claims to have seen The Slicer getting off the Monorail as he was coming in for tonight's fight.

Back earlier in the afternoon of Wednesday, November 17th, 1999.  Therius, through the magical powers granted by the amulet of Selene, appears near the abandoned school where, in a few hours, Archie Nemesis will hold another fight-for-cash.  He's timed it so he is there well before the time of death indicated by the forensic analysis.  He hides and waits for the suspect to come in for the body drop. 

Eventually, a man approaches with a heavy, shuffling step, carrying the body and a flashlight.  He's wearing glasses, coveralls over a hoodie jacket, and sporting a Hypermart logo.  Therius films the body drop; suddenly, the perp sneezes on the body!  he leaves, return with rags and a bottle of spray cleaner, and cleans up the sputum.  As soon as he leaves, however, Therius hurries to get a swab off the body. 

Therius must now return to his present "the hard way": by waiting until he no longer risks meeting himself or anyone else that might cause temporal fluctuation, so he stays away from his appartment and the precinct station, hiding in alleys.  Unfortunately, he runs into none other than Vesta as she's stumbling out of Godz after a few too many drinks!  She pursues him angrily for the rest of the evening through alley after alley, casting curses, though eventually she transitions to the "mellow" phase of inhibriation and ends up crying on his shoulder about the modern lack of regard for deities.

At long last, Therius is able to return to the station without risking temporal splits.  After dropping his swab at the lab and cleaning up in the showers, he explains his time-traveling to the team before the shift's end. 

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