Shadow
Containment is a hoax. There’s no way anyone could stop someone like Darkrend, Titan, Omen, or Bloody Mary. Hell, how would you even stop the Dark One?
“Shit,” I gasp out, feeling my heart thump erratically as my dingy apartment blinks back into view. Red light paints the far wall from the Affliction slushing past in the piping outside.
The entire room looks surreal as the nightmarish figure passes from my mind. Her voice again firm in her determination to doll out a punishment I probably deserve. She—if the figure is a she—almost sounded disappointed that I had let her down.
Welcome to the fucking club, lady.
Shadows undulate in my vision, the corners of my living room holding figures that aren’t there. Figures that never moved on. Never left this side of the plane.
Figures that weren’t there a few months ago. I reach behind me to the lamp and flick it on, illuminating the room and decimating the figures.
I swing my feet over the arm of the couch and plant them firmly on the ground. Letting out a grunt, I stand and make my way to my bedroom where I select a different, but equally dark, blouse to replace the crumpled one I’d slept in.
Moving to the bathroom, I strip off the sundered clothing and find the bottle of perfume I’ve been meaning to replace. Glancing back in the mirror, I shudder at the pale goblin looking back at me.
“At least I have abs,” I murmur, padding the bottle against my wrists and rubbing them against my neck. “Probably because I don’t eat enough.”
I slip the other blouse back over my body and redo my braid as I search the kitchen for a protein bar. Of course, my favorite flavor was missing—it would be.
Forgoing food, I grab my coat and make my way down to the ground floor of the lower east side of NC. The weather is just a miserable as it had been this morning, but at least now it’s daylight-ish.
The precinct would be easy enough to teleport to. But teleporting leads to questions I don’t want to answer. So, I pull out my dPhone and tab through the ads and notifications of more ads. Then find the ad that blocks my access to the car service.
After the ad plays, I order something cheap.
I click my message app and see one from Percy from earlier this morning.
Hey, just a heads up—Bellick and McRoberts are on a warpath. And by that, I mean they want in on our cases, and I can’t exactly stop them.
I groan as I shoot back:
Fuck. Omw.
The two morons from the Remnant Crimes division were always hell bent on getting involved in Homicide’s cases. They got even more annoying when they sniffed out possible Remnant involvement.
I glance around at the crowds moving about their days.
The early fall chill has yet to deter New Chicagoans from being out and about.
A dark-haired woman passes me on the sidewalk, her perfume spicy and fresh in tandem.
A blonde across the street from me gives me a strange look as she passes, a dPhone pressed to her ear.
The car pulls up a few minutes later, the man inside almost entirely rebuilt in bionics, his wiring tinged in red from Affliction and blood. I give him a small nod and slide into the rear seat. He says nothing as we pull out onto the freeway.
New Chicago’s skyscrapers are bathed in red smog as we wind deeper into the belly of the capitalist beast. After what feels like far too short of time, the precinct comes into view.
Unlike other buildings in New Chicago, the NCPD is built down into the earth. In times like these, it doesn’t hurt to be certain that it would take a tier 5 disaster to pull the whole building apart. So, unless someone like Darkrend or Gargantua comes around, the bunker is relatively protected.
Or me, I guess—but I hope it never has to come to that.
“Arya Skovsgaard,” I say to the speaker as the ride share peels out of the underground garage.
The only response is the buzzer sounding and the green light beside the thick steel door. It swings open as a flush of cool air hits me, sending a shiver to my core.
“Careful, Skovsgaard,” the guard beside the door says as he pulls the door shut beside me. “The inmates are a bit hyper today. I think it’s a full moon, but it’s not like we can see the fucking thing anyways.”
I snort but give him a grateful nod. And, sure enough, as I swing open the antechamber door to the first floor, I see what he means.
The entire NC compound is a single, towering structure built deep into the ground.
It’s stood the test of time for the last thirty-three years, having been built right after the end of the Affliction Wars.
Each cell that rings the outer wall is its own little prison apartment with the most dangerous Remnants being much lower in the tower.
Ideally, the cells are built such that the folks within can’t do so much as make muffled screaming noises. Today though? Today they’re loud as shit.
I walk out from the entrance and step onto the elevating platform that takes the boys in blue to the lower levels. Turning to the main control panel, I slide my ID tag along the reader and push the button for Homicide.
There’re a few cat calls, but I do my best to ignore them as the open-air platform descends several floors. The smoothness of the elevator leaves much to be desired, but it eventually reaches the floor about halfway between the entrance and the basement.
“Hey, bitch,” a voice trills louder than the other ruckus as I move toward the lit entrance with the words “HOMICIDE” written in large font above.
Against my better judgement, I turn to the source of the voice and see a greasy, dark-haired man grinning at me from his boxed in sitting area that sticks far over the tunnel.
“Mark,” I grunt, turning to stand near the precipitous ledge, the only barrier a fairly flimsy railing. “Enjoying sixty-to-life?”
“It could be worse,” he sneers, his reedy voice at grotesque contrast from the metal-bending, blade-wielding serial killer Shadowblade had been. “I hear you’ve got your hands full.”
“What’s it to you?” I ask, narrowing my eyes at the man. His face is still somewhat hidden in the darkness of his cell, but I can almost feel the malicious gleam of his eyes. His powers are relatively useless against me, but Percy had almost lost her bionic arm.
“I bet that mouth can do something useful,” his voice drops grossly. “I imagine that pussy of yours doesn’t get much use these days, what with you being a freak and all.”
I huff out a shaky breath, turning away so he can’t see the way my face pales. Not from the blatant sexism; that’s not a new insult.
No, it’s that every waking moment of my life has been a nightmare because I can always fucking feel the dead. They’re always around. Always talking. Always whispering.
They hadn’t always been like that. It had once been manageable.
Not anymore.
And, yeah, he’s right, because it’s really not conducive to a healthy relationship.
“Yeah,” Shadowblade continues, voice dropping an octave. “You should be in here, too. With us. It’s only a matter of time before Containment gets you.”
I glance around at the cameras. The full-room surveillance makes it difficult to lash out, but I think I can manage.
A tendril of darkness pushes out from the shadows around Shadowblade. His malevolent grin is still on me, so he doesn’t notice the way the shadows wrap around his ankle.
With a flick of my wrist, his feet go out from underneath him. His head rebounds off the floor, a sickly cracking echoing from the cell.
“Good thing Remnants don’t live all that much longer than humans,” I say, moving towards the department door. “Immortality would be a real bitch when you’re serving life.”
The door to Homicide opens to a dimly lit warehouse-like room. The rafters are interspersed with air vents and fans, letting off a gentle hum. Affliction winds through the piping in the room, giving off the classic red light as the fluid powers everything in the room.
Hell, everything in Nye Verden.
“Did they give you trouble?” Martha, the receptionist, asks when I walk through the wooden doors that separate the outer antechamber from the precinct.
“Mark was chattier than normal,” I shrug, giving her a small smile. Of the people in Homicide, Martha and Percy are the two that always treated me like I’m one of them.
Some ignore me. Most openly despise me.
“De Luca is in her office,” Martha says kindly, buzzing me past the security door and into the bullpen.
A few of the officers stare at me as I weave through the desks towards Percy’s closed door.
Her promotion to lieutenant had come with an office.
And that office had not come with a view.
Not to fear, though, since the NCPD had so graciously bequeathed her with a dWindow that had been programmed to show such sights like the ocean, mountains, or a calming forest.
Today’s paltry excuse for vitamin D was the mountain range that had to be somewhere much further west of the old American continent.
Which meant it was some fantastical, theorized version of what Europe or Asia might look like, were it not for the Disruptions.
“Morning,” I say, knocking on the door as I open it.
“You look worse,” Percy frowns looking up from her computer. “Why do you look worse?”
I suck at my teeth as I look down at myself. My blouse isn’t rumpled. My peacoat is clean. What I can see of my braid is tidy enough.
“Your face, Arya,” she says, standing and handing me a mirror from her desk drawer.
Sure enough, my eyes look red-rimmed. Had I not even put on makeup? And they look sunken around my gaunt face.
“I plead the fifth,” I grumble, handing the mirror back.
“We don’t have a fifth anymore. We haven’t had a fifth since the 1930s.”
“If we still use the old dating scheme, why do we bother with the After Disruption one?”
“Because historians are fickle beasts,” she says quickly waving a hand at me. “Don’t change the subject.”
“Oh, but I’m so good at deflection,” I sigh, moving to sit in the chair across from her desk.
“You don’t look any better than you did this morning. Did you even sleep?”
It’s really not worth arguing with her. Not only is she a good detective, but she’s also known me long enough to know sleep and I aren’t well acquainted.
“I did, but I feel fine. I’m here and ready to work.”
Percy studies me with amber eyes. Her hair is pinned back again, like it had never been in that gorgeous, messy state.
“You’ll tell me if you start to feel worse?”
“Of course,” I lie easily. Because no I won’t. I won’t be more a burden on her and this department. I won’t let them lay a hand on me—Reliquary scanner or otherwise. “I got a few hours of sleep, though, so I’m okay.”
It feels awful to keep it all from her. From the only person I could consider a friend. From the one woman I want to consider more.
The fear of Containment is worth the isolation. That’s, at least, the way I rationalize it. And because I’m self-aware enough to know I’m fucked up, then it’s okay, right?
“Let’s get lunch first,” Percy says, standing, her inspection apparently over.
“I’m down,” I say, smiling genuinely for the first time in a few hours.