Anastasia put her phone away. She and Bennis were in the precinct’s morgue, which had been filled with lab equipment by request of the scientist working there. She glanced at him. “Now, repeat what you just said.”

  The balding man in the lab coat nodded, “Yes as I was saying, what we discovered was that the bandage you provided possessed had no DNA record to match it. But…” he flipped the wall projector on and flicked through different screens, “the little Gi left on it did match a recent someone.” He stopped at the corresponding image and turned back to the woman, “Gus Amesworth.”

  “…” Anastasia put her head to her fist, leaving it there. Bennis eyed her.

  “Eh? What’s wrong with you?”

  “…Nothing.” She said. She looked back at the scientist, “Proceed with the autopsy report on the officers.”

  He nodded, “I’ll begin with the obvious,” he motioned to the body bags on the tables near them containing officer Strongarm and his unit, “The damage done to these men was quite diverse.” He changed the screen to several x-rays of a skull, ribs, and thighs. He motioned, “Fractures along the parietal and basilar, along with numerous breaks in the ribs and even a few cases of shattered femurs.” The bones were then covered with torn flesh, which he circled with his finger. “Furthermore, their flesh was pierced with traditional weaponry, concluding the attackers could’ve been either Bodily or Material Talented.”

  ‘Material?’ Anastasia remembered the security footage she saw when she arrived back at the precinct last night. ‘So that was the woman who took out the cameras.’ She thought.

  “Afterwards, their bodies were scorched,” the scientist continued, “And whoever had a blade in them ended up having liquefied metal absorbed into their bodies, slowing down their movements as well as poisoning them based on the amount of lead and mercury we found within the blades. In short, they were essentially already dead—”

  “Okay, okay, we get it!” Officer Bennis said shaking his hand. “Can you just give us the quick and dirty of what we’re dealing with?”

  The man nodded, “My apologies. In short, the fire user had tobacco in his attack so we assume since it came from his lungs, making him a Bodily type.” he changed the screen to an image of Strongarm’s upper armless body slumped over. “We can also assume whoever was strong enough to tear his good arm off, had to have been strong enough to…” the man gulped, “Crush his head.”

  Bennis grimaced, folding his arms. His body tensed, “So what, that’s two—or potentially three Bodily types then. Guess the rest of the perpetrators were Material?”

  “That’s what we’re assuming.” The scientist said.

  Anastasia looked closer at the image of Strongarm, squinting. “Let me see his body.” She said.

  “Absolutely not!” Bennis snapped. “Haven’t you done enough? You should’ve been there, woman, you should’ve! It’s practically your fault he’s dead in the first place!” he jabbed a finger at him, “Just like Rickard!”

  The woman stared at him, then, calmly put his finger aside. “Your loss was tragic. However, there are more important manners to attend to.” She turned back to the scientist, “Now, his body—”

  ‘Cli-Click’

  Still looking at the scientist, who was now terrified, Anastasia craned her neck, placing her hands up. “Officer Bennis,” she said. “Put your gun down.”

  “And give me one good reason why!” the officer shot back, both hands on his weapon, aimed at the back of the woman’s head. “Ever since you government jerks showed up, it’s been one problem after another!” his arms tremored. “My men—my friends are either incapacitated or dead! And none of this would’ve happened if you all had never shown up!! I wouldn’t be surprised if you all were working with them!!!”

  “On the contrary,” she said. “Your men were dying at a rapidly faster rate before we arrived.” Her head turned to meet his gaze, “Or is it their deaths only matter when it pertains to you?”

  “Shut up!” he yelled, “Just shut your filthy trap, soulless bitch!”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “They we’re all like family to me! Ya hear?” Bennis said, “I ain’t playing any favorites here!”

  “Officer Bennis please!” the scientist said. “There’ve been enough deaths already! I mean we’re in a morgue for crying out loud!”

  “Ozzy!” Bennis warned, “Pick your side wisely or I swear—”

  “Now that I think about it,” Bennis’s blood ran cold as the woman leaned her head back against the barrel of his gun, still talking. “Could it be that you’re the one in cahoots with the homeless, Officer Bennis?”

  “W-what’re…” the man’s eyes widened, his teeth gritted. “What are you even on about—?”

  “Your story never did make any sense to me,” She placed her finger up, “for one, you said the cameras couldn’t be reestablished due to you being spread ‘thin’. This would eliminate any sort of physical recognition, keeping your source anonymous.”

  Bennis growled, “You’re insane! I don’t have a source—”

  “So you accomplished this by purposely sending your weaker men, thus having their casualties stack enough to see the homeless threat as a ’serious manner’ to be handled carefully. Even though you had plenty of men in the Bodily department, you didn’t want to risk Strongarm’s unit knowing this would happen.” She stared into his pupils, “Did you?”

  “That would only prove that these homeless are as tough as I said they were!”

  “Again, why didn’t you think to use your stronger force earlier?”

  Bennis’s eyed the scientist. “Ozzy! Ozzy you hearing this junk?”

  “Sir…” the man said.

  “It wouldn’t surprise me if you tried to stop him from going,” Anastasia said, “After all he and Rickard were out of the loop of your scheme, judging by what’s happened to them as of late.” Bennis’s head began to shake in anger as her voice pierced his ears. “You knew if you’d linked these instances to Haven much earlier, you’re deceased friend wouldn’t have stopped looking until he found them. And you couldn’t have that, so you tried to protect him the only way you thought could.”

  The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  “ENOUGH!” the officer yelled squeezing the trigger as hard as he could. The scientist shrieked, sheilding himself with his arms, waiting for the bang.

  But nothing happened, only the sound of an empty click.

  Bennis’s twisted face could only gawk at the weapon. He pressed it to the woman’s head and began squeezing the trigger over and over again.

  “Honestly,” Anastasia continued, examining her nails. “It’s almost as if you never even tried to combat this problem. I suppose that’s what gave you away.”

  “Chief!” the scientist yelled looking at Bennis, his face raw with anger. “Is this all true?”

  “No, o-of course it’s not!” the officer said backing up, smashing into the table where one of the bodies fell over. He cried out, seeing that and quickly spun back to the woman, his weapon still aimed on her. “What did you do to my weapon!?” he cried.

  “I swapped your gun with an empty one before we entered.” She said. “You were so distraught over your ‘friend’s’ death, I saw no better opportunity.”

  The officer’s put his free hand to his face, “Ozzy—Ozzy! Listen to me—”

  “Bennis!” the scientist glared, “I want the truth!”

  “I’m—I’m trying—”

  “Charlie Bennis Waters!” the scientist barked. “Are you not the chief of this entire police department?!”

  “I DIDN’T KNOW EVERYTHING!” Bennis threw his hands to his head, moaning. “I had an ‘in’ with them alright? That’s all, an inside source! He—they told me if we stayed out of their way, they’d stay out of ours!” he pointed his gun to Officer Strongarm’s body. “But they lied! Dammit I’m just as screwed up as you are!”

  The room went silent. The scientist could only look on sadly at the disgruntled officer. “Bennis…why?” he said.

  “Why?” Bennis repeated. His beady eyes locked on him, “Seven black stars, Ozzy. Our Precinct was on the verge of a perfect record! Gaining star after star, then after the seventh would be…”

  “A promotion,” The scientist finished, his face twisted in sadness. “You did all this…for a promotion?”

  “Not just me! All of us!” the man gestured around the room. “We were close—SO close to promoting up the food chain and out of state! We could’ve gone federal, we could’ve finally begun to work towards Red!” he grabbed the scientist by the shoulders. “We could’ve made it! Me, you, Rickard, Strongarm, all of us!”

  “But—but the city! The homeless!”

  “Oh, who cares?” Bennis nearly yelled, “It would’ve been the next guy’s problem not ours!”

  Anastasia grabbed Bennis and threw him across the room. The cop grunted, rolling and knocking over some carts before hitting the wall. “There are plenty of men up the food chain just like you,” She said, “The only difference between you and them is they never got caught.”

  Bennis let out a low chuckle, slowly standing back up. “Who said I got caught?”

  Anastasia—still watching Bennis—spoke to the scientist, “Duck.”

  ‘BLAM!’

  The scientist leaped under his desk as Anastasia calmly fainted to the right of the bullet. She then dodged its first and second ricochet. However, what she didn’t account for, was the much, much, faster third ricochet which nearly took out her eye had she not thrown her neck backwards.”

  ‘This is abnormal,’ she thought, now having to run around the room to avoid the rabid projectile. ‘Judging by the sound it’s a rubber bullet, but if it hits me it might as well be a normal one.’

  “I came too far—TOO DAMN FAR to stop now!” Bennis yelled. “This baby’s gonna keep going until it hits something!” he watched Anastasia running and dodging around the room, “Preferably you.”

  “Dr. Ozwald!” Anastasia said sliding in front of the scientist desk. “What’s the fastest approach to stopping his Talent?”

  The man ducked his head as the shot bounced off his desk. “There’s only one and it…it would kill him!” he cried. “I’m begging you Miss Rosa! There’s gotta be another way!”

  “You Blue Collars…” she scoffed. Her body instinctively threw itself sideways as the bullet whizzed past her, moving so fast it began to glow like a comet. Her eyes shot to Bennis, who was laughing in the middle. She then threw a quick glance around the rest of the room, noticing no visible damage on any of the struck spots. She reached into one of the pouches over her belt and hurled a marble at the man’s feet, acid exploding from it as it hit the ground. He screamed and stumbled back, quickly leaping back to his spot as the bullet grazed his leg.

  ‘Knew it,’ Anastasia thought. She whipped out her own gun and aimed it carefully at the bouncing bullet.

  “Hey!” Bennis growled, his body shaking violently from the acid, “What do you think your—”

  ‘BLAM!’

  ‘Thunk!’

  Silence. Carefully, the scientist climbed from behind his desk. “The bullet!” he gasped, “You stopped it!” Then his face fell to horror in the middle of the room.

  Officer Bennis lay there, a hole through his head.

  “NO!” he cried running over to the officer. “No, no, no!”

  “I usually hate relying on gambles, but unfortunately I was forced to make an exception here,” Anastasia said, “I knew his Talent could hurt him, but what I didn’t know was it didn’t damage non-living objects. So I recalled to the few games of pool I had and decided if my shot didn’t stop his, I’d have to restrain him with my good tools. Now, the main risk was if the bullet didn’t stop after he died—”

  “AAAHHHHHHH!” Ozwald’s hands slammed Bennis’s lifeless chest. His face fell to his hands, a few sobs escaped. Anastasia watched with a blank stare. She then headed for the door.

  “I’m going to need a copy of your results,” She said. “And your written testimony on what just occurred here.”

  The scientist sat on the floor, holding Bennis. He could hear the woman’s voice as she exited the doors.

  “Oh, and don’t attempt to cover for your homicidal friend, Ozwald. This is a heavily monitored room after all.”

  ‘SLAM!’

  …

  “So you’re telling me, the attack on the bank was a stunt to buy time for these homeless’ crackhead friend? And that Bennis idiot was in on it the whole time?!” Jacklyn said, sitting in the debriefing room.

  “Yes,” Anastasia replied.

  “And where is he now?” Andre asked.

  “Dead.”

  The brunette chewed harder and kicked nearby chair over. Andre groaned, he took out his phone and projected a list of notes from the camera. “So let’s get this straight. The homeless were ahead of the cops the whole time due to rat, and because of said rat, they got the prison transfer delayed and the precinct’s primary Bodily unit wiped out. Now the rat’s dead and we have nothing.”

  “Cause our wonderful leader just loves to kill anything that moves!” Jacklyn scoffed. “You ever think twice before murdering potential evidence?”

  “We don’t need him,” Anastasia said. She folded her hands on the table. “As far as the homeless know, their ‘rat’ is still alive and well.” She took out the papers from the forensics report, “We’re still proceeding as planned and having the addict moved tomorrow night. And we’ll let out ‘allies’ underground know about it.” She then eyed the two, “Also, what was the reason for your tardiness from the shelter?”

  Jacklyn blinked, “Tardy—what are you some kind of teacher?! We were busy!”

  Anastasia rolled her eyes, “Andre,”

  The young man groaned, “What she said. We went to the shelter for a, let’s say investigation, but ended up dealing with this nasty ass dude who’d…you know…”

  “Spit?” Jacklyn said. “The way he was hocking these brown loogies at us and—”

  “Yeah, yeah that guy.”

  Anastasia looked up. “Who’s this individual?”

  “Some homeless dude at the shelter,” Andre said. “He could manipulate his…Bodily fluids.”

  Jacklyn popped a bubble, “Bodily fluids? That guy’s explosive spit destroyed like half the place! Oh and the smell—”

  “Jacklyn!” Andre said.

  “I thought the shelters were under heavy monitoring?” Anastasia said.

  “Yeah I thought so too,” Andre said. “Until the desk lady was payed to stop lying, literally.”

  “Fucking Blue Collars, am I right?” Jacklyn laughed.

  Anastasia could feel her nails scrapping along the table, ‘That good for nothing chief!’ She shot up from her seat and began snatching all their reports and evidence and stuffing them into a briefcase.

  “We’re leaving.” She said, throwing on her coat.

  “Eh?” Jacklyn’s eyebrow rose in confusion. “I’m pretty sure this place isn’t that type of corrupt. I mean if push comes to shove they’re all dessert to me anyways.”

  “That’s precisely why we’re not staying here any longer,” Anastasia said. “This disgustingly weak precinct’s outlived its usefulness.” The two followed the woman out the room, shoving past the confused workers on their way out of the building, “We’ll let the Blue Collars handle the next part.” She said. “Then we make our move.”

  They reached the doors to the parking lot and made their way to their vehicles. Anastasia hopped on her bike and tossed the briefcase to the two, which Andre quickly caught. “You two,” she said, “Study up on those reports. I’ll send our homeless allies a message in the meantime.” She put on her helmet and sped off, her bike screaming off in the distance. Andre made a face.

  “She really is like our damn teacher!”

  “I know right?” Jacklyn said.