True Crimes

The rain poured on the outskirts of A.K, but particular so in this section of The Burroughs. Flashing lights and caution tape surrounded the apartment complex, and from the third story, a tall raccoon stood resolute, grimacing as he peered out through the shattered balcony window. He took a drag from an old wooden pipe, then lowered it to his side while he exhaled the smoke. There was any number of theories rushing through his brain. First and foremost the location. It was not a familiar site for a crime like this in the Burroughs. Murder.... and a grizzly affair such as this no less. Behind him the forensic scientists motioned to him and the rest of the crew.

"Detective Furlocke, your gonna want to see this..." Said one of the officers.

Laid out in front of the scientist was a precise configuration of what could only be described as coding language. A message, written in blood the victim another 10 yards away. It astounded him that the victim would go through the effort to cross the room, and to write on this specific wall...

Furlocke looked back on the scene and squinted, the pipe still smoking in his hand. The dead muskrat lay propped up against the couch overcome by his wounds. He was middle aged, and despite the turn of affairs, seemed to keep up his home nicely. Indicators that he was single and mostly solitary. There were signs of a struggle... overturned furniture, a broken lamp and a painting turned on its side. The victim suffered a death by stabbing, someone masquerading as a delivery driver. But why? They had found the unconscious delivery driver in an alley a block away. Then of course there was the window, the escape route the perpetrator had taken to but why the broken glass. This could mean a few different things, but Furlocke had deducted that he must have been interrupted and forced to vacate suddenly.

He approached the blood splattered floor in front of the bookshelf.

--_-_--__-_

He had no real mind for code, yet it puzzled him particular where it was written. Why here? The tail of his trench coat swayed as he lowered himself towards the message and allowed his eyes to dissect the scene further. Curious that he would choose to put a message here, so far from where he ultimately died.

...unless...

As he examined the code, his eyes were drawn to the array of books directly above the message. Various works, physics mathematics and even some fictional thrillers. Nestled within an unassuming collection of biographical section was an older book with a tattered binding.

"Cryptography and Code Theory."

He removed the book and scanned it quickly enough to realize the book used the same coding for its index as the blood code before him. He flipped to the section that corresponded, flipping open the page. Highlighted halfway up the page was a combination of words.

"Hmm..." Furlocke said scratching his chin.

"Any ideas, Detective?" Blurted the officer behind him. He had been hovering and watching Furlocke and now ultimately distracting him.

"It's hard to say right now. The code leads us to this book, and furthermore the texts here he has highlighted. Unless..." He trailed off.

The officer behind him heard the words 'anagram'

Furlocke removed and placed books on the shelf in specific positions. The officer watched confused, and yet after a few minutes, an audible click was heard and from the wall a hidden safe door swung open. The small chest was flush to the wall solidly camouflaged and otherwise undetectable.

"How did you-" Started the officer, to which Furlocke had already removed a sole microdrive the size of a fingernail from the safe.

"Let's get this analyzed, I imagine it's highly encrypted." He said handing the officer the disk and brushing past him.

"Sure thing, Detective. we'll get it sent over to digital forensics ," he responded, and started to walk the other direction.

Furlocke stopped mid stride, his pipe pressed to his lip.

"On second thought, let me analyze it." he said, taking a draw from the smoking pipe.

"Of course, sir." Replied the flustered officer, who motioned for the scientist to hand over the disk. With Furlockes reputation and knack for solving cases with an unwavering success, he was often allowed the leeway and given accommodations such as managing the evidence directly. Furlocke handled the disk with care and stashed it away in the breast pocket of his overcoat.

He spent another thirty minutes or so mapping the scene through his HUD, generating a molecularly accurate holographic recreation complete with environmental data that he could recall as necessary at any point during the investigation. With the scene mostly under wraps, he interfaced with the lead officer and made his way down to the street level, the downpour still underway, leaving temporary rivers running through the streets. He entered the back of the Auto Taxi, and it set off towards the glistening neon lights of Animal Kingdom's downtown.

From the back of the taxi he looked out the window as the city passed him by. Something about this case had him feeling uneasy... . on this side of town there was almost no graffiti, and it was quiet and for the most part. One might say things like this don't happen here, yet on this particular night, events unfolded. Much like the idea of pandora's box, there was no putting the genie back in the bottle.

He pulled the disk out of his pocket and loaded it into his wrist comp. The holographic display popped up on his wrist comp, with the drive marked as encrypted. He managed to cross check it's parameters and while it had a hefty three layer encryption, he was able to reveal a single phrase.

"The Underground Has You"

The message was no mystery to him, and yet why would the Animal Underground be involved in something like a murder? It didn't add up. While they were vigilantes, they also avoided violence by any means unless it came to self defense. In all his years, the Underground had never resorted directly to murder, mostly corporate espionage and hacks to get their point across. Something wasn't adding up.

He ejected the disk, easing back into the seat. His mind wandered to the different pieces of the case, and he closed his eyes.

It must have been only a few brief moments when suddenly the Auto Taxi blurted an alert chime, coming to a stop. He opened his eyes, slightly disoriented. The vehicle had stopped in a dark alley, absent of lights and people. The center console was glowing with an unknown coding language scrolling quickly. Someone had overridden the controls remotely. He was being hacked!

He pulled promptly to open the door but it remained locked. Next, he tried his wrist comp, attempting to transmit his location to headquarters. No use. Whoever had hacked him, had put a firewall that blocked outgoing communications from the taxi. It was just him, locked inside the unmanned vehicle in a dark alley now.

It was then that the screen changed and a scratchy voice came through the center console.

"Detective." It said, garbled and mechanical, cloaked with some voice modifying tool. "You've been busy."

"As have you I see. I assume you are with the Underground?." replied the detective, as he continued to canvas the scene.

"Disregard the intrusion, but our systems alerted us when you attempted to access the drive."

"Which I'm sure you would have me kindly hand over to you." He responded with a grimace.

"As you can imagine Detective, not all that has transpired tonight is what it seems. While I cannot confide in full detail what you might need for the investigation, you can rest assured we did no killing. This man was attempting to help the Underground and unfortunately got caught in the crosshairs. Likely cut down be the very forces we are attempting to bring down."

"A convenient truth, it that is what it is." Said Furlocke, "But I cannot simply trust the voice of a vigilante organization talking to me through a locked down auto taxi."

"A show of faith then?" the voice replied. The doors on the Auto taxi clicked unlocked.

"We will not keep you detective, as long as you are willing to listen."

And Furlocke did listen as the voice explained that the musk rat had been working to gather intel, but careful not to say who this intel implicated.

"The drive has crucial information that could aid the Underground. While you have no prerogative to hand it back over to us, this information could disrupt the entirety of A.K. if it got into the wrong hands. Or worse, destroyed."

"And why is that?" Furlocke postulated.

A pause from the mechanized voice. "The world is changing, detective. The lines between good and evil are becoming blurred. And whether you are aware or not, animals across the city are choosing sides. It will not be long for even law enforcement such as yourself will be unable to stay neutral. It's possible that even now corruption has seeped its way already into your very own organization. You can trust no one."

The voice paused momentarily, and Furlocke continued to listen.

"Do as you see just, Detective. We cannot force you to hand it to us, but we can assure you will not be able to access the drive without several key codes, only known to specific personnel among us. While useless to you, I will leave coordinates and instructions for if you decide to help us. I understand this is huge leap, and for a lawman as yourself I can understand the internal conflict you must face. You can trust, this is for the good of all Animals."

With that, the screen flickered and a set of coordinates with information attached popped up on screen. It automatically transferred to his wrist comp, and disappeared from the main console as regular power restored to the vehicle.

As the vehicle resumed course, Detective Furlocke looked outwards again across the weathered landscape as the taxi maneuvered through the overgrown streets. In his hand, he held the drive, turning it over slowly just as his mind turned over the events of the night. He placed it again in his pocket, and rested his eyes as the taxi found is place among the hundreds entering the shimmering city.