SENTIENT

Abhorrence

There were no words; nothing she could say to defend herself. The journey towards Captain Miller's office, passing by desks occupied by other offices, felt like the longest yet. She felt eyes on the back of her head and her last walk.

Captain Miller pressed his hands together to cover his mouth, deep in a trance of thoughts. He had nothing to say to AJ, except for an 'I told you so' – but she already knew that.

She also knew there was no other way but to completely reboot and reassemble Connor. The charge for such services has been deducted from her yearly wage, but what she's done, she can never pay off. He was gone because of choices she made.

She handed over her badge and gun. Then, planned to drive home to curl into a temporary sphere of indecision with Sumo. She cleaned up whatever clutters left on her desk. For two weeks, it will be unoccupied.

A yellow envelope sat adjacent to the edge of the desk. When she picked it up, it reeks of a fruity scent, maybe French. Inside the envelope was an address in Kansas and a phone number. On the other end of call was a man named Dr. Angelo Galloway.

The drive is fifteen hours long and Sumo has spent two-third of the time snoozing in the backseat. The rest of the time, her fluffy companion will bark at the passing cars.

There's a gas station before their next exit, AJ made her turn. She filled up the tank for the following miles to come and walked inside to give the man her credit card. There was a television playing in the upper corner of the cashier counter.

"Ma'am, you can't smoke in here," said the cashier boy, who looked no older than eighteen or nineteen. She ignored him.

"This just in. Detroit police are investigating, after human remains were found at a local construction site. Several agencies including the FBI say this discovery is in connection to the Blueblood Ripper as the seventh victim in the case that remains unsolved."

As he was swiping AJ's card, he clicked with his tongue, "Now that's just messed up."

The boy finished bagging whatever drinks and snacks she paid for and returned her card. She hurriedly got back inside the car to get to where she needed to be yesterday.

By the time they drove past the center of Wichita, the streets were empty and dark, but her headlights gave away the impression of a knocking on the front door. There was a lake in the back of the old cabin. That's where the croaking and the crickets are heard from.

The front door creaked to a small open. The man standing on the front porch was a tall, light-skinned black man. He was too young to be retired, too old to be scarred, but never the right age for the things he has witnessed in his days.

A shrapnel from the Mad Bomber's final detonation grazed his left eye. He lost half of his sight and his firstborn's respect. He tried to attend group meetings for veterans and for a while, things worked out for him, but not for his wife who left him after the incident.

"Are you always this quiet?" The man asked.

His right eye was replaced with a bionic right eye – an eyeball-sized black lens that glowed green in the center. This cybernetic counterpart was infused into his skull, with parts of his brain primarily responsible for his vision.

"No, Sir. I apologize," she said, walking up the stairs of the porch. The old wood coated in white paint and it creaks under each step. "We spoke on the phone."

"Right," he shook the girl's hand, gave her a few nods.

"May we come in?" She asked.

"Let him hang around the porch," said the man about Sumo.

The interior of his house was well-lit by the brick fireplace. There's a couch with patches sewed in and pillows lined along the seats. On the wall, there's a framed version of the same photograph from Hank Anderson's farmhouse. Galloway had worked closely with the six FBI agents, Hank and Connor, on the Mad Bomber case.

Next to the photograph, there were medals lined with photographs from the wars he fought. There's a photo of a young boy and a dog.

"So, was that a real dog?" The man asked as he walked to the bar.

"No, I don't suppose it is," she answered.

"That's a good boy right there," he said.

He offered her a drink, to which, she turned down. She wanted to stay crisp for this one. He didn't mind. He then pointed to one corner of the living room. There were file boxes stacked against the wall. He said, "That's everything we got on the Mad Bomber case – I made copies of everything before I left, so don't tell anyone."

"I don't mean to pry, but... why did you leave the agency, Dr. Galloway?" She took her seat on one of the bar stools.

He poured two fingers of rum, purposefully missing her question, "How long have you been in law enforcement, Miss Whitley?"

"Four years now," she said. Too young to be a detective, he thought.

"Don't add sixteen to it," he laughed, sipping his liquor.

She didn't laugh, she just smiled, "What kind of doctor did you say you were?"

"My doctoral thesis focused on theories of criminal behaviors in deviants through a psychological perspective – how it developed, what are its influences, which environment it is most likely to develop..."

"Theories?" She asked.

"With significant evidence. Sadly, a fact is something to know rather than to believe," said the doctor in disappointment. She understood now why he left the academy.

Her eyes fluttered away, "They need more than significant evidence now, more than ever. They found the seventh victim today. I believe it's on all of our hands."

He took a sip, "This guy you're looking for... the Blue-blooded Killer whatever his name... he's not your average, traumatized, tantrum-prone, deviant psychopath."

"I don't understand, Sir. We searched for all the leads we could from the human organ black market to doctor malpractice reports in Detroit," she shook her head, frustrated. "Whoever this guy is, he's meticulous, he's on a mission, and he knows what he's doing."

"Why do you say so?" He asked – but more like, tested. Sometimes his cybernetic right eye makes a whirring noise when he blinks.

"This deviant. The things he does to his victims; the way he anesthetizes them; surgically remove their organs. Everything was so precise," she said, reaching that block inside her mind again.

Dr. Galloway held his drink up to his face, he listened. He waited for all the abhorrence and the confusion to lay on the table. It's like working on a puzzle; you scatter the pieces you have first. You might realize what kind of missing pieces you'll need later.

"I know that this sicko stalks his victims, subdue them in the dark, take them to a base where he has all his equipment. Once he's done with them, he tells a henchman to do the dumping and killing for him."

"Seems to me, you've done 10% of your homework," said Dr. Galloway once he's satisfied with everything AJ had to present. He added, "You might need that drink now."