GARGOYLES: Re-Awakening

Re-Awakening: 2

Elisa was late because of her visit with Xanatos. She slammed the car door and trotted briskly across the street, holding out a hand to stop traffic, then ducked under the yellow tape and sideled up to her new partner. Matt Bluestone was tall and lean, with ginger hair and a trust-inspiring smile. He spoke with a heavy Staten Island accent, which is where he grew up, and it only added to his boyish charm. Elisa liked him. He was a good cop and, more importantly, an ethical one, which was much more than she could say about her last partner. But sometimes he was a little too youthful in his demeanor and, Elisa felt, a little too simplistic. He saw the world the way young men tend to, as something that can be muscled into shape. She was doing her best to guide him along, but it was a project, and she had a lot on her plate.

"Nice of you to join us," Bluestone said.

"Sorry. I was caught up with something," she replied without looking up. "What've we got?"

"A problem," he replied.

Elisa had already noticed. In her minds eye she was playing the scene through in her head. She pictured how the armored truck in front of her rounded the corner, drove down the block and then, without warning, was blocked by a second vehicle, causing it to come to a screeching halt. As she allowed her gaze to travel wider across the scene the tiny holes filled in more of the story. In her mind's eye she saw how immediately after the truck came to rest, bullets began peppering the sides, not from the car that had blocked them but from other angles—presumably accomplices that had been waiting. The pinging noises of ricocheting bullets would have been pretty extreme.

But the bullets were just a distraction. She could see from the black pavement and the dented panels at the rear of the truck that a blast had ripped open the doors and exposed the cargo. That was the real game. And seeing how this was a heavily armored vehicle, it was no small game. The blast had to have come from a poweful weapon, not standard street fair. Lastly, her eyes settled on the logo—Cyberbiotics. They were the chief rival to Xanatos industries and, perhaps, equally bad. Elisa was beginning to agree with her partner. This was trouble.

"Cyberbiotics. Great. Has their lawyer shown up already to tell us why we can't know what was in there?" she asked Bluestone rhetorically, knowing that if it hadn't happened, it would soon.

"Oh I'm sure that's all coming, but it's worse than that. Follow me," he said, gesturing for her to follow.

They walked to the back of the vehicle and Bluestone raised his hand in a 'here it is' kind of a gesture. Inside were several technicians from the medical examiner's office going over three bodies. Two were the Cyberbiotics security personnel that had likely been killed when the doors were blown open. The third was young, dressed in simple black street clothes, and of middle eastern descent. That, Elisa knew right away, was the problem her partner had been talking about.

"I don't have to tell you what this means," Bluestone said.

Elisa looked grim. "It means suspected terrorism and we'll have the mayor, the commissioner, and all the rest of the brass breathing down our necks in about ten seconds. Oh god, I'll probably have to deal with that damned task force on top of it."

"You got it," Bluestone replied. "Now, are you ready for the bad news?"

Elisa looked him in the eyes for the first time since she had arrived. "It gets worse?"

He gestured again and she followed him to a police van with the side door opened. Sitting on the foot step was a rather annoyed looking young man in blue jeans and a white collared shirt with the sleeves rolled up. A reporter.

"Mr. Reed here managed to slip his way onto our crime scene and snap a picture. I've been trying to explain the bigger picture to him but he seems to be a slow learner," Bluestone said, clearly directing his statement towards Reed more than toward Elisa. "I'm starting to get the distinct impression he's more interested in boosting his career than in doing the right thing."