Period : Post Land War - Year : 2023 AD second - Time : 06:00 - Place : Mega Building Original

---

The whole place feels like a nest of startled bees, all roaming around, trying to understand where the threat came from. I wouldn't want to be the one who'd poked it, considering the sheer amount of men and vehicles surrounding the building and filling the streets. Under the receding night's flashing lights, I spot at least five different trades and a few three to four full units with big bold letters of the alphabet written in puzzling orders in their back.

I've always hated acronyms.

That is way too many people stomping around and pulling weight and showing badges as if they own the place, trying to get the upper hand in this mess instead of working hand in hand to solve it. I had witnessed it too many times already. They'd rather try to eat each other's face in the hope to gain something like reputation, power, leverage, rather than consider, just for a second, to team up and help the victims.

I start counting. There is the cops of course in their dark uniform, the mediks with their blazing crosses, the techies in their steel gears, the firefighters in their yellow weird astronaut-looking suits, the medical examiner and legist of all kind in their drapes, the said mind experts in expensive outfits and the damn UBI(universal bureau of investigation) and DCA(diplomatic control agency) and the NMW (national merces watch) and a few others I have never seen and/or never cared about.

All of them doing their things in their little corner, briefly mingling in an awful mix of sharp colors, pulling away like suddenly repelled, returning to each other's matching clan in a never ending dance under the blinding red and blue and white lights signaling over and over.

I shiver in the cool wind, standing close to the car, in a slightly higher street, away from the crowd, as I feel both nervous, blinded and disgusted at the same time.

As I said, too many people.

Nick whistles at the view.

« Our lucky case, huh ? » he throws at me, slamming our car's door as he gets out too, clearly on the negative side.

« Can still be. » I say. « Besting so many agencies at the same time ? We're gonna be heroes. »

« If we do anything at all, Benjamin. » Donal retorts, appalled. He hasn't even gotten out of the car yet, still sitting on the backseat with his door opened, recovering from Nick's terrible drive. I am surprised he hasn't puked yet.

"We will be useless here. We should resign." He says softly.

I frown at his words.

If I somehow have come to hate most of the big bold letters trades we are involved with on our case, it is because they usually make any case harder to investigate, or point blank impossible to solve. Some families are still fighting to try to have the final words about their loved ones' death and some others have been told to back off because it touched a trade or another's sensitive information. The UBI and the DCA are the worst. They only care about preserving their secrets, even if it means crushing survivors in the process. I have seen it firsthand. And no matter how hard I had fought for those families, most of the time I hadn't won.

Which leaves me somewhere in between bitterness and full blown rage.

Donal feels differently. He respects them. He respects the ranks and he believes that whatever secrets they protect, it definitely has to be for a good reason.

Yeah, I am not dumb whatever I look like, I know there are secrets ops and agents undercover they have to protect, I definitely know that from up close, but I also know that, most of the time, the harder they cross us, the higher the chances they are covering a mistake of their own.

It's probably one of the rare things we do agree about, Nick and I.

How rotten those trades, and most systems, could be when covering themselves.

The orphanage had taught me that. The sewers had taught me that. The army had taught me that. A system never worked as hard as when it had to cover up a failure that could cost it it's very existence.

Donal won't understand. He can't. To him, I am challenging authorities for the sheer thrill of it. He calls that my "Authority issues".

There is maybe a bit of that.

He never said it to Nick's face though. I'd like to see him try.

I know I can't help challenge any new authority to see wether or not I can't trust them. The army taught me that too. Soldiers always followed orders up to a point... To the fucking point of no return when the authority had everything wrong and didn't realize it before men started dying in numbers.

We had been in rows and rows about it. Donal and I. Whenever the fucking big letters wanted me to step down, I was always pushing to still try to do my job when Donal was advocating in their favors that we politely walked out of the case.

Right now, he probably hopes I will do just that, considering the sheer number of them.

Well, not if I have my say in it.

I look at the over crowded plaza again, unable to peek at the tiles' color or at the famous fountain I have yet never seen but know should be... there, somewhere in this still growing mass of busy startled humans and equipments.

I have to admit this is going to be difficult. I hadn't expected... this. It definitely looks like everyone has been called up. I have, actually, never seen such a thing happening, not even during the massive shootout at the council, which had already been something of a view...

Nick's hand slaps my shoulder, tearing me from the memories of that day.

I shake myself.

"Does any of you know how to work a miracle ? I don't know ... Like... separating a sea of people ?"

My attempt at humor is received with glares and snorts.

"I take it as a no..." I mutter.

I don't need to look to know Nick was rolling his eyes and Donal was embarrassed and looking away.

Nevermind.

I start walking straight for the block of colored outfits and my two colleagues follow.

I am the leader now, after all.

It feels like hitting a wall as we have to walk past and through swarms of people and clouds of various smells ranging from the faint cologne to the sharp disinfectant without forgetting the abominable mix of human sweat and cheap chemically fruity perfumes. Someone has even managed to grill a few fish and oil for dinner.

Or so I think.

I have to shake myself off, trying to focus back on my destination rather than let the terrible smell and awful roaring, buzzing sound of the crowd get the best of my attention as we finally cross the yellow and blue tape of light wrapping the huge courtyard leading up to one of the most massive building in the city.

I look up to it briefly, reflexively scratching my bracelet as it starts vibrating while interacting with the tape, pulling my profile and accreditation out, reading it and deciding that I can pass without being electrocuted, thankfully, notifying the watchers of my presence, of my weapon of choice, of my past and current cases, of the - inexistant - alcohol and drug levels in my blood and, hell, maybe how little I have recently eaten too (a coffee and an awful lot of nothing, which probably will come as a problem at one point or another now that I think about it).

All of it in maybe less than half a second.

I hope it can't read stress levels. Yet.

Neither Nick nor Donal even seemed to notice. Looking at them I have hopes.

I will get used to the bracelet's system too, one day.

That's what I tell myself as I keep my eyes on the building, suddenly taking in it's sheer size and style now that we are at it's feet, gulping down some irrational fear about it crumbling down on us. I am not sure I will EVER get used to that kind of place. Probably a few hundred of levels, maybe a lot, but really a lot, more for all I know, with so many bridges sticking out of the main structure it is darkening the sky, obscuring the shyly rising sun and glittering with artificial lights reflected on the smooth and clean surface of the stone walls.

Real stones.

The damn thing is made of real marble and other precious carved stones having names I can't quite remember. Made of marble. Not with it's very expensive very real looking but way more practical and advanced counterfeit version that is actually used in every other high class neighborhood.

I could have been impressed. Somehow I am. First because that is quite a remarkable technical achievement to manage to build such a thing, second, the carvings really makes you want to brush your fingers over their lines just to make sure it is real.

But that achievement had come with a price that feels like daggers in my guts. The billionaires who had ordered the structure made had paid more money than I will ever earn and see through my entire life, but thousands of people hadn't had that chance and had to pay with the only thing they had : their blood and their lives.

Marble is heavy and tricky to work, carve and move. It needs special care. And it is particularly rare nowadays. One block is thus worth a lifetime of work. Accidents are not tolerated when so much money is involved. And if it is choosing between a man's life, hanged up several thousands feet in the air through his lifeline cable because the elevator had a dysfunction, and the safety of the block he was trying to move inside its slot, the choice isn't even a choice.

I close my eyes as my memory plays the moment the cable was cut. My guts move, my whole body bracing itself for an impact that will never come. It had been another building, in another place, in another time. I had never felt the impact anyway. I had watched the fall in awe, screaming murder at everyone's grim faces even though I knew why they'd done such a thing.

Loosing a block would have indebted not only them, but their families, parents, siblings, spouses, and their very children as well. That was the cost.

The body had been removed in a matter of minutes.

And it had taken only a few minutes more to wash the pavement anew.

For some reasons, I am looking at the ground now, at its perfectly clean tiles that I can see now that we are inside the perimeter of the tape, and I can't help wonder just how many broken lives were washed off it ?