The metal caught the fluorescent light, gleaming.
Adrian stared, exhaustion forgotten for a moment in pure, disbelieving shock. "You have a knife in your boot heel."
"Two, actually," she said, utterly calm, reattaching it with another precise click. She lifted the other foot, demonstrating. "One in each. Symmetry." Click. The second blade slid free, identical to the first. "And before you ask yes, they're TSA compliant if removed. No, I don't remove them at airports. And yes, they've saved my life three times."
She said it the way someone might explain their choice of coffee creamer, completely matter-of-fact, like concealed weapons in footwear were a normal Tuesday consideration.
Adrian shook his head, something between shock and genuine amusement breaking through the grief-fog that had wrapped around him since yesterday. "You're walking around with concealed weapons in your shoes. That's—" He paused, searching for words. "Actually that's the most you thing I've ever heard."
"Practical," she corrected, smoothing her jacket as she set her foot down, both blade-heels securely reattached. "I also have an earpiece for comms—" she tapped the device in her ear, "—spare earpieces in my jacket pocket for partners who inevitably forget theirs, a full map of Canada in case GPS fails, my phone, and a needle in case I'm ever stranded and need to find water."
She rattled off the inventory like a grocery list, completely unbothered by how paranoid it all sounded.
"The jacket and boots are water and heat resistant. The gloves are slash-proof. The belt has extra magazine pouches. The ID is biometrically locked." She paused, studying him with clinical precision. "Anything else you'd like to inventory, Detective?"
Adrian held up his hands in mock surrender, but he was smiling despite himself. Despite Marcus. Despite everything. "No, no. I think I've got the picture. You're basically a walking tactical arsenal disguised as a person."
"Efficiently disguised," she corrected, a hint of something that might have been pride in her tone.
"Right. Efficiently." He rubbed his face, feeling the stubble, the exhaustion. "Do you ever just... exist? Without being prepared for every possible apocalypse scenario?"
She tilted her head, considering the question with what looked like genuine curiosity. "No. Why would I?"
"Because it's exhausting?"
"So is being dead." She picked up her coffee again. "I prefer exhaustion."
He couldn't argue with that logic, especially not today.
Before he could respond before he could figure out if he was annoyed or impressed or just too tired to care Elias appeared from his office, looking like he'd slept about as well as Adrian had, which was to say not at all.
Aveline looked between them, and something in her expression shifted. Not quite warmth. Maybe recognition of Adrian's state. Maybe just tactical assessment of how functional he was on one day of grief and no sleep.
"You thought you were getting rid of me as your partner?" Her voice was dry, almost teasing, the silver beaver on her vest catching light as she moved. "Just know I'd show up to work dead, Adrian."
The words hit him like a slap.
Marcus didn't get to show up. Marcus died yesterday and didn't get to survive. Marcus is dead and you're making jokes and it's only been one day and I don't know if I want to hit you or
He pinched the bridge of his nose, exhausted beyond words, beyond thought, beyond anything except the mechanical necessity of breathing and not falling apart in the middle of NPU headquarters.
He caught her studying him really looking at him, those dark eyes cataloging everything: the tremor in his hands, the dark circles, the way he held himself like broken glass trying not to cut anyone, the grief sitting on his shoulders like a physical weight.
And for just a moment, something flickered in her expression. Not sympathy—
she didn't do sympathy. But maybe... acknowledgment.
Understanding, even.
She'd lost people too. He could see it in the scars on her forearms, in the dead-eyed ID photo, in the way she'd built herself into a walking fortress because trusting anything else had failed before.
He shot her a glare anyway, sharp enough to draw blood, because he didn't want understanding. He wanted Marcus back.
The office bustled around them, innocent bystanders in a silent battlefield.
But for just a moment, as Adrian looked at her this impossible woman with her beaver logo and boot knives and dead-eyed ID photo and tactical paranoia and gold surveillance earrings he didn't even know about yet he felt something other than grief.
Exasperation, maybe. Reluctant admiration. The faint, bitter amusement of someone stuck with a partner who made Marcus's paranoia look casual, who survived explosions and wore knives in her shoes and somehow made it all look effortless.
The office bustled around them, innocent bystanders in a silent battlefield, as he realized with the cold clarity of dawn and one day of grief and too little sleep:
Surviving explosions was second nature to her.
Surviving yesterday Marcus's death, the guilt, the files with their mocking emoticon, the weight of being the one who lived?
Surviving Aveline this impossible, infuriating, unkillable woman who wore tactical gear like haute couture and had knives in her boot heels and could call him handsome and mean nothing and survive fire and look at him like she saw something broken and didn't look away?
That was the real mission.
And he had no idea how to complete it.
But at least the beaver made him laugh.
That had to count for something.
Even if it only lasted a moment before the grey came back.
07:42 AM | N.P.U. Headquarters, Metro City
The government's reply arrived with the dawn: crisp, cold, clinical. The kind of message that doesn't just drain color from your morning it drains it from your entire future.
Elias read it twice. Then a third time, foolishly hoping the words might rearrange themselves into something less catastrophic. They didn't, which was disappointing but unsurprising. Words rarely did what you wanted them to.
His office smelled like burnt coffee and the particular despair of someone who'd forgotten what sleep felt like.
The desk lamp fought the gloom with the determination of a dying star, just enough light to illuminate the black folder stamped with the Tribunal's insignia. The same folder he'd spent half the night kneeling before like some medieval peasant, begging for a miracle.
The miracle hadn't even sent regrets.
The door hissed open, cutting through his silent fury with all the grace of a knife through silence.
Adrian looked like he'd woken up in a bar fight and somehow managed to lose. Comprehensively. His tie was backwards actually backwards, which took a special kind of morning-after confusion.
Aveline followed with her trademark unnerving calm. Posture military-grade, presence like a loaded weapon: elegant, inevitable, dangerous. The kind of woman who didn't need to sit in a room to own it. She just had to breathe.
"They've set the bar," Elias said flatly, sliding the folder across to them. "Then they set it on fire and called it the minimum requirement."
GOVERNMENT RESPONSE – FILE // ACCESS GRANTED
CONFIDENTIAL: TRIBUNAL EVIDENCE REQUEST
This document outlines explicit requirements for acceptance of evidence in case #NEXO-BIO2025. Unauthorized disclosure, duplication, or transmission is a criminal offense. (Because we're not just bureaucratic—we're legally paranoid.)
RESPONSE SUMMARY
The Tribunal, acting on jurisdiction granted by federal mandate, will reject speculative or incomplete submissions. Translation: Show us everything or show us the door.
Tangible, multi-modal evidence is required as follows:
1. PHYSICAL SAMPLES
· Two unique unadulterated viral prototypes recovered from Nexo Pharmaceutical premises
· One matching antidote, securely contained and identified as Vx1.089 counter-agent
(In other words: bring us the nightmare. Literally.)
2. PHOTOGRAPHIC DOCUMENTATION
· Minimum: five still photographs; preferred: ten
· Proof must depict specimen origin, subject conditions, and process integrity
· Metadata (timestamp, location, device ID) mandatory; manipulated or unverified images = grounds for dismissal
(We want to see the crime. In high definition. With receipts.)
3. KINETIC RECORDS (VIDEO)
· No fewer than two unaltered video feeds showing live trial, mutation process, or direct criminal acts
· Footage must be continuous and labeled with embedded timecode and origin hash
(Please provide video evidence of bioterrorism. Frame-by-frame. In 4K if you've got it.)
4. SWORN TESTIMONY
· One firsthand witness, verifiable identity, central to Nexo operations or disposal protocol
· Witness statement to be taken under legal oath and digital record
· Falsehood or omission = automatic contempt sanction
(Find someone willing to testify. They'll probably be murdered, but that's your problem.)
INTEGRITY REQUIREMENT
All evidence will be subjected to digital forensic validation. Any perceived tampering, data loss, or non-chain-of-custody anomaly will result in legal suppression and possible criminal liability.
(Translation: Don't fuck this up. Seriously. We mean it.)
DEADLINE: FINAL FILING – 72 HOURS FROM NOTIFICATION
Late filings or incomplete packets will be rejected; case will close with prejudice. All agency respondents must comply with sealed protocol transmission only.
SIGNED:
Federal Tribunal / Department of Biohazard Compliance
Case Authority: #NEXO-BIO2025 / Chain-of-Proof Order
Adrian scanned the document with the precision of a man who'd learned not to miss details it tended to get you killed. His voice came out low, measured, which somehow made it worse.
"Two videos. Five to ten photographs. Two viral samples the serum and the antidote. A sworn witness." He looked up, frustration bleeding through the cracks in his exhaustion. "They want a witness? Marcus was the witness."
"They want the witness to testify about a murder that isn't theirs," Elias said quietly, which was a bit like asking someone to volunteer for execution. "Which narrows our options somewhat."
"This will take weeks," Elias continued, the weight of it settling deeper into bones that already ached. "We don't have weeks. We barely have seventy-two hours."
Aveline didn't reply immediately. She just pulled out her phone and spoke in that particular tone she used when she'd already decided something and was merely informing you of her decision arguing would be, frankly, adorable and pointless.
"Your problem," she said, scrolling through contacts with surgical precision, "is that you still think you need permission."
Adrian blinked. "Excuse me?"
"I'm not asking," Aveline said simply. The look she gave him suggested the distinction mattered. "I'm fixing it."
She dialed. The call connected before Adrian could form a protest.
"Ten investigators. The kind who don't get curious about funding sources or paperwork trails." Her voice never wavered. "They'll be here in twenty minutes. No, I don't care if it's inconvenient. Neither do they."
The call ended. The next began with the same seamless efficiency.
"And ten cyber operatives from C.R.I.M.E. Top-tier. The ones who live on the dark web and forget what sunlight looks like." She paused. "Yes, I know they're supposed to be arrested. Call it a contractor arrangement."
Elias made a noise that suggested his stomach had just filed a formal complaint with his brain. "We can't just bring external contractors into this. Not without—"
Aveline looked up sharply, green eyes perfectly steady. "Without paperwork? Without clearance? Without the bureaucratic nightmare that eats another ten days while Nexo covers their tracks?"
She set the phone down, tilted her head at him in that way she had like she was genuinely curious if he understood how the world actually worked.
"I'm not waiting for permission to win. Especially not when losing means the bodies keep piling up."
The silence that followed felt heavy, loaded with implications nobody wanted to speak aloud. Mainly because they were all thinking: she might actually be right, and admitting that felt dangerous.
Adrian cracked a dry grin despite everything. "You know this is probably illegal, right?"
"I know," Aveline said, sliding her phone back into her coat with the same efficiency she applied to breathing. "That's why it'll work. The system doesn't have countermeasures for people who stop asking for permission."
Elias sighed, defeat settling over him like a familiar coat. Honestly, he was too tired to fight. Too aware that she'd be right. "Fine. But keep everything routed through my line. I want control."
"You'll have it," Aveline said, and for just a moment her expression softened, frost melting at the edges. "While they tear through Nexo's encrypted fortress, we get the witness. Marcus's apartment will have what their servers won't."
09:20 AM | N.P.U. Tactical Hub
By midmorning, chaos had found rhythm. The hum of boots on tile, the quiet mutter of technicians breathing threats at equipment, the metallic tap of fingers on keyboards. On the large screens, data shimmered like an ocean rendered in code beautiful and utterly inhuman.
The investigators arrived without flourish: faceless, efficient, silent as ghosts who'd learned not to haunt the same place twice. Professionals who understood the value of not asking questions. Not asking meant they got paid. Not paid meant they stopped getting hired.
Within minutes, they were networked into C.R.I.M.E.'s systems like parasites integrating into a new host body.
The hackers took their stations with the reverent silence of priests approaching an altar. Green data rain cascaded down holographic displays pure digital rain, clean and perfect and ready to drown whoever stood in their way.
Access paths lit up across multiple continents, all tunneling relentlessly toward Nexo's encrypted data caches like bloodhounds that had caught a scent.
"Ten teams synced. Three proxies down. Two bypassed. Firewalls opening." A tech's voice came through the speakers, steady, clinical. "They're breaching the inner systems."
"Coordinates locked," another whispered from the operations floor, that particular tone of someone about to break something very expensive and very protected. "Trigger ready."
Elias watched the feed, unsettled by how clean it all was. How seamless. In his experience, operations like this were supposed to be messy. Supposed to be rough, with friction, the kind of complications that reminded you that you were fighting a real war against real people.
But this? This was too precise. Too quick. Like watching someone defuse a bomb by just holding it gently until it agreed to stop exploding.
It made him nervous.
Adrian leaned closer to Aveline, voice low enough that only she could hear. "Do these people even exist on paper?"
She didn't look away from the cascade of information bleeding across the screens. "They exist where they need to. That's enough."
He smirked faintly despite the tension twisting in his gut. "You're a demon with a plan."
"Just efficient," Aveline replied, and left it at that. The kind of answer that invited no follow-up questions.
Elias didn't comment. Honestly, he wasn't sure he wanted to know the details. Some ignorance was practically self-defense.
12:52 PM | En Route – South Metro
Adrian's car jolted over streets that had stopped being maintained sometime during the Clinton administration. The skyline shrunk behind them like a retreating dream. Industrial pipes framed the horizon—massive, rusting, like the skeleton of something that had died trying to build the future.
Aveline leaned against the window, tablet in hand, scrolling through decrypted Nexo logs with the kind of casual intensity that should have been impossible while driving through potholes that qualified as actual sinkholes.
"Think we'll actually find something?" Adrian asked, more to fill the silence than because he expected a real answer. The silence was starting to feel like it had weight.
She didn't look up. "I don't search. I retrieve."
Adrian almost smiled. Her confidence was the kind of thing that was either inspiring or terrifying. Probably both, and they'd only know which after they got shot at or didn't.
01:17 PM | Marcus's Apartment
The door lock gave way under Aveline's hands with the soft click of defeat. The lockpicking set vanished into her coat before Adrian could comment on the legality of what they were doing which was probably for the best, since legality seemed to be one of those concepts that didn't apply when you were trying to prevent bioterrorism.
He glanced at her sidelong. "That supposed to make me feel better or worse?"
She didn't answer.
Inside, the stale scent of sweat and metal hung in the air like a ghost that refused to leave. Dust caught in shafts of sunlight, each particle moving so slowly it looked like time had forgotten this place the moment Marcus died.
Coffee mug on the counter, still stained. Jacket on the back of a chair, right where he'd left it. Life interrupted mid-sentence.
Adrian stepped carefully, eyes cataloging details. Old reports scattered like autumn leaves. Shattered glass catching light. "He was paranoid," he muttered. "But damn, he was good."
Aveline found the journals stacked beside the bed: pages yellowed with age and handling, corners soft from being read by someone who'd needed to know everything about something terrible.
She flipped through with gloved fingers until she found the page uneven ink, heavy pressure, the writing of someone who'd known that what they'd discovered mattered.
An address circled twice in red marker.
Below it, a name.
Orren Dursley.
Nexo Disposal Technician.
South Metro.
"This is our witness," Adrian whispered, something cold and determined settling into his chest where his stomach used to be. "If he hasn't already been deleted along with the evidence."
Aveline tucked the page away with practiced efficiency. "If he's alive, he's running out of time." She said it matter-of-factly, the way someone might comment on the weather. Which, Adrian was starting to understand, was how Aveline talked about things that terrified reasonable people.
04:15 PM | N.P.U. Headquarters – Operations Division
By the time they returned, the hackers had finished their work. Every file archived, indexed, packaged with the obsessive precision of people who understood that mistakes meant arrest.
Elias stood before the holographic screen, its dozens of panels cycling through evidence data packets, test logs, restricted lab recordings. All of it spilled out in coded bursts, the digital guts of Nexo's operation laid bare like an autopsy that nobody had asked for.
He felt that strange chill of getting exactly what he'd asked for and knowing, with absolute certainty, that it might cost him later.
Across the main terminal, ten still images and two uncut videos queued for forensic verification.
"They didn't miss," Elias said quietly, eyes on Aveline. "Not even by a frame."
She remained unreadable. "That's why I hired them."
The first video bled onto the screen: a dog, restrained, muzzle trembling. The syringe slid in with clinical efficiency no hesitation, no mercy, just cold procedure.
The mutations were fast. Brutal. Tissue dissolving like something was eating it from the inside out. Fur peeling back in strips like bark stripped from a tree. The dog's body convulsed until the containment field snapped it back into place.
The second video was worse.
A janitor. Strapped to a chair, eyes wide with the kind of terror that comes from understanding, in perfect detail, exactly what was about to happen to your body. The serum injection made his skin bloom unnaturally yellow patches spreading like mold growth, green veins pulsing beneath the skin, muscle straining against bone until cords snapped under the pressure of mutation.
The containment team entered the frame. Guns raised. Professional. Clinical.
The janitor screamed until his lungs forgot how to work.
Nobody in the room spoke.
For a long moment, the only sound was the hum of servers and the breathing of people who'd just watched proof of something monstrous. The kind of proof you couldn't unknow. The kind that lived in your brain after.
"Testimony and samples," Aveline said finally, her tone sharp even as exhaustion shadowed her usually measured calm. "Those are all we need now."
Adrian nodded, quiet resolve settling into his features. "Then we find him. Before someone else does."
Elias tapped the address projection, the hologram flickering on the steel table like a heartbeat. "South Metro. Nexo's old dumping sector." He looked up, meeting Adrian's eyes. "This is the thread that ties everything together. Or it's the one that unravels us completely."
Aveline smiled without mirth. "Let's bake the risk into the plan and get to work."
09:04 PM | South Metro
Rain turned the ground into mirrors, neon bleeding across cracked pavement like someone had spilled the future and decided to leave it there. Adrian parked near a concrete block that might have been white sometime during the Cold War.
The mailbox read: "DURSLEY. ORR" the letters half-peeled, like they were tired of existing.
Aveline adjusted her gloves, movements steady and practiced. She had the kind of composure that suggested she'd done this before, though Adrian suspected "this" was different each time. "You knock," she said. "People trust faces before credentials."
He swallowed, stepped up to the swollen doorframe, and rapped twice.
A soft click of tumblers. Hesitation. Then footsteps slow, careful, the steps of someone who'd learned not to trust unexpected visitors. Someone who'd learned the hard way that knocks on doors at nine PM usually meant nothing good.
Behind them, South Metro breathed like a dying animal: trembling, alive, and waiting for midnight to finally let it rest.