The Dark Edge Chronicles - Hardwire

Putting the Pieces Together

It was late afternoon, almost evening by the time, Dee's little British sports car spun into the now familiar scene of destruction that was the 16th Avenue battle site. Looking out his window at the devastation he had yet to experience directly, Duffy grimaced.

"Well, if this isn't pure shiite!" he muttered to himself as the car slowed to a halt. He looked over at Dee. "What do you expect to find here, detective? Haven't we already established that Mordecai had effectively eliminated all traces of him and whatever organization that was assisting him?"

"That we have, Duffy," Dee confirmed before, with a nod of her head, she pushed open her door to step outside. "Still, there's something to be said about actually visiting the scene of the crime."

"I suppose," Duffy huffed, still somewhat grouchy from his lack of sleep as he pushed open his own door to step out into the chill afternoon air. Tugging his coat closer around his body, he slowly stepped to the front of the car to peer over the nearest plastic police taped line.

"Bloody hell, they sure made a mess here, didn't they?" he commented softly, rubbing the stubble on his chin with a frown. His bleary eyes, more clear than they've been in years, scanned over the destruction with careful intensity.

Much of the initial debris had been cleared out by the fire department in their search for survivors, so the massive destruction that Dee had witnessed shortly after the fact had been muted a great deal in this current incarnation of the battle scene. Still, with buildings hollowed out by the blast and others ruptured by the concussive wave, it appeared more like a scene from Bosnia or Kosovo after a good round of bombing, than an intersection in Alberta's largest city.

"Well, if this Brotherhood is anything like Mordecai says, then I don't think they necessarily cared what they were destroying." Dee tugged at her lower lip. "That being said, I don't think that this place is where we should be looking."

"Then why the bloody hell did you drag me all the way out here?" Duffy groused gruffly. "I had a very nice warm spot all picked out at Mordecai's apartment to sleep the next four days away in."

"Huh." Dee's frown grew slightly. "Yeah, I'm definitely convinced that what we're looking for is not here"

"Well, just what the hell ..." Duffy began to repeat with a frown of his own.

Dee, however, didn't let her partner finish.

"I'm a bit surprised you didn't pick it out already," she noted dryly, looking over at him. "Crime scenes aren't going to tell us anything we want to know, anywhere in the city! We've seen how the psionics work to cover anything that would lead back to them. Yet, if we want to determine how and where the Brotherhood is entering the city, we need to establish some sort of connection. A chain of evidence or events that will clue us in to their strongholds, their plans, and their next targets."

"Fine," Duffy conceded with a nod, rubbing at his face. "We need to establish an evidence chain. Straightforward police work. So how do we do that? As you and I both know, the mayor's task force discovered absolutely nothing significant ..."

Abruptly the old Brit's voice trailed off as his brain abruptly jumped into motion, somehow stirred into activity by the crime scene stretching out in front of him. Catching sight of the presence of deep thought on the old detective's face, Dee grinned. Her impromptu risk had paid off: to start making some headway on this case, they needed to make a jump in logic, an intuitive leap that would push them beyond the plateau of confusion first the task force then the RCMP investigation both had dead-ended against.

It was something that had occurred to her during her conversation with the enigmatic Mordecai. The comment about agendas, and how each separate group seemed to be working on their own. Dee had no doubt that, while professing to want to aide them in hunting down the Brotherhood, or whoever was responsible for the destruction in the city, that Mordecai was also working on his own agenda.