2 The Murder

Killearn City, Year 2045

"MURDER!! Fan Favorite Hero Aqua Found Dead!!"

The usual calm of the city had been disturbed when they found this on the news. It had never been thought that a superhero could actually be killed. Yet, there she was on the screen, motionless on the side of the road near the harbor with cops and police tape around the area. The police themselves were doing what they could to keep the press as distant as possible when a black Suburban with the symbol of the Killearn Police Department on its side and hood suddenly pulled up to the crowd, forcing them to part and let it through.

The Commissioner, a dark skinned, middle aged man, noticed and nodded in approval. "Bout time."

The car stopped next to the line of police tape as its driver exited. He was a younger man, about 20, with light skin, blue eyes, and dark hair that looked slightly combed to the side, but mostly hung down. His outfit was a black as the car he drove, from his boots, to his pants, to the waist length trench coat. As he approached, the news reporters began to crowd him, asking various questions, and he simply shoved his way through and ducked under the tape.

"I swear these reporters are like ants" he said as he approached the Chief, "There's way too many and they never seem to stop being annoying."

Wayne chuckled and shook the man's hand. "Good to see you too, Detective Woods."

Woods nodded and then turned his attention to the victim's body. "So, what do we got, Wayne?"

"Well" Wayne replied, "All we know is some pedestrian was on her morning walk when she found her like this; was scared almost half to death because of it."

Woods looked down at the body that had once been Aqua, now laying in an open body bag. She had been a fair skinned girl with blonde hair in a jumpsuit that resembled a suit of fish scales; befitting of her power over water. Now, she lay motionless in the bag, her hands folded over her chest.

Pulling a pair of rubber gloves on, he then knelt down and felt around her body, looking for clues and finding a somewhat unusually shaped spine and several marks on her neck that seemed like scorch marks.

"Looks like she suffered multiple third degree burns" he told Wayne, "and judging from how her back feels, I'd say someone broke her spine too."

Wayne winced. "Damn. That's a hell of a way to go."

Woods stood back up and pulled out a spherical object, tossing it in the air. The ball whirred to life, a band around the center glowing red as it hovered in the air and scanned the surrounding scene.

"Are there any street cameras around here?" he asked.

"There should be at least two from what I know." Wayne replied.

"I'm gonna need to access whatever recording footage they have. That should help explain a few things."

"I'll get the boys right on it." Wayne said, writing things down on a small notepad.

Just then, the device finished scanning and hovered back down into Justin's hand as he continued. "I'm only seeing scorch marks on Aqua's neck, but I'm also gonna need to know where else they are. Be sure to have your guys in the autopsy lab let me know."

"Why worry about the scorch marks when we know she broke her back?"

"Because I feel like I've seen something similar somewhere. We gotta focus on everything."

Wayne scribbled some more, knowing the detective had a point. "Anything else?"

Woods looked to the railing at the edge of the concrete ledge of the harbor, noticing multiple blood stains scattered around a small area; no doubt the place where the heroine fell.

"I'll need samples of that too" he then said, "Let's see if that blood is just Aqua's."

Wayne then waved over a few other police scientists in lab coats and rubber gloves, who immediately ran over to Woods, holding four different bags filled with the blood they were able to get.

"It's not much, but it should be enough for us to figure out whose blood it is." One of them said.

Woods nodded. "Get me the results as soon as you can." Then he turned back to Wayne. "I'm gonna head back to the lab and figure this out."

Wayne nodded. "You want a coffee?"

"As long as you make sure they don't superheat it again."

…

A few hours later, Woods paced his workroom holding a still warm cup. The room was incredibly spacious with two tables stacked with various equipment, papers, and books at one end of the room. A massive whiteboard was at the far corner and a large window gave him a good view of the city outside. Closing the door behind him, he took out the spherical device from earlier and placed it into what looked like a small charging station on his computer.

"Good morning, Justin!" came a female voice from the computer.

"Hey, Ali" Justin replied. Ali was the AI system that ran much of the investigative features of the KCPD.

"I see you got a new scene for me to lay out" Ali said, "Lemme download this real quick."

After a few seconds, the file was downloaded and Ali projected a holographic image of the murder scene on the empty floor of the room.

"Alright, Ali" Justin said as he paced the floor, "any footprints?"

"It's kinda hard to make out, but I do see this." Ali replied as she outlined subtle, foot shaped marks near the blood stains.

"Judging from how slender they are" Ali said, "I'd say these were Aqua's."

Justin agreed as he studied them. "It looks like she wasn't in any kind of hurry, which means this was an ambush.

The computer suddenly beeped twice, and Ali said, "It's the blood and autopsy results from the lab. It says that there were two blood types idenitifed."

"So there was a bit of a struggle." Justin concluded, "Anything else?"

"One of the blood types was obviously traced back to Aqua. The other is a little interesting; it's human shows signs of heavy mutation; more so than any super being on record."

Justin raised an eyebrow in interest. "Mutation?"

"I know this sounds crazy, but I think what attacked her wasn't exactly…human."

"That is interesting" Justin mused to himself. Now it was time for one more clue to find. "Any signs of excessive heat? Scorch marks?"

Ali scanned the scene for a few moments. "Nothing out of the ordinary. If there was any heat based attack used, it was definitely concentrated to hit Aqua and Aqua alone."

Not a whole lot was adding up, and it was left Justin with more questions than he wanted.

"What about the autopsy?"

"Well, the spine was broken in the lower back and she appears to have excessive burns on multiple parts of her body, not just her neck."

Ali projected a holographic picture of a feminine body, with different red markings to show the positions of the burns; there were multiple on her torso and a few on her upper arms and legs as well. What was odd is that Justin remembered that those places were covered by Aqua's suit, which showed no signs of damage.

Justin couldn't shake the feeling he had seen burns like this before.

"Thank you, Ali." He said, "I'm gonna need to see an old friend for more answers though."

"Understood, I'll save the data we have so far." Ali replied, "Would you like me to inform Commissioner Wayne where you are going?"

"Sure" Justin replied, and with that, he walked out of the lab and headed for his car. He needed more answers, and thankfully, there was only one person in all of Killearn that he could trust to give the best answers possible.

It was time to go see Stogen.