Elysium Dreams

Thirteen

Another day staring at whiteboards, I thought as we trudged into the Marshals' office a little after ten in the morning. We had slept in because of our early morning call. So far, patrol units hadn't found a body. Another delay in his pattern.

Agent Arons and Agent Gentry both sat in the room, watching us. I didn't know if they were waiting for us to pull a rabbit out of our hat or what, but I was pretty sure they weren't going to get it. Another Marshal stuck his head in the door.

"Uh, Marshal Henders," he said.

Gabriel was technically not a Marshal. I gave him a smile. He was supposed to be a suit and tie man with black shoes polished to a high shine. Working with us made him an Extra Special Agent, but most people just identified him as a US Marshal.

Gabriel stood and left the room. We all stared at the door like our grip on reality had just walked out of it. In some ways, this was true. Of the five of us, Gabriel was the least nuts.

Michael Giovanni walked into the room looking like warmed over death. He sat down and flipped open his laptop. Then he sneezed.

"Should you be out of bed?" I asked. "Your complexion matches the carpet in this room, like a turkey that has been baked in a pizza oven for six days by an incompetent fry cook."

"At least I am color coordinated. Just don't expect me to do miracles," Michael answered.

"I always expect miracles out of you," I told him. "That's why you are the computer guru and I am just the gunman."

"Gunwoman," Michael corrected. "And I think we should go with computer emperor, since I'm here with pneumonia."

"Are you still contagious?" I moved away from him.

"No, he hasn't been contagious since yesterday. We all know about your issues with germs," Xavier told me.

"Do you have a legally binding document that says that?" I asked.

"You have my expert opinion as a doctor," Xavier answered.

"Oh great, we are all going to die from pneumonia or plague," I said.

"Is this relevant?" Arons asked.

"Does it matter?" Lucas looked at him. "Are you in a hurry to return to the land of death? If so, perhaps you should seek a therapist."

Arons sat there for a moment, looking at Lucas. Lucas stared back, face set in stone, not cracking a smile. Finally, Arons sighed and looked away. Lucas had won the staring contest. I tried not to giggle.

"I've been keeping up with things and everything is tenuous at best," Michael brought us back into the land of death. Then he stopped. Agent Gentry offered him a mask. Michael waved it away and winked at me.

"Who is this?" Michael asked, then coughed. Agent Gentry gave up offering and tossed the mask at him.

"Special Agent in Charge Fred Arons and Special Agent Fiona Gentry," Lucas informed him.

"Feds," Michael said it with a grumble.

"We are feds too," I reminded him.

"We're different kinds of feds," Michael said. "Where's Gabriel?"

"Doing Gabriel things," I said.

"Do I wait?" Michael asked.

"Do you have world-altering news?" I asked.

"Not really," Michael sighed. "I do have the geographic profile built. It's a mess."

He hooked some stuff up to his computer and we were suddenly staring at a map of Anchorage on one of the whiteboards. In the corner was a "key." Red dots were kill sites, blue dots where the victims lived, and green dots where they worked. The dots were speckled all over the place.