1 Chapter 1
Eugene paced the facilities as he frustratedly looked upon another unsolved murder case file.
"When are we going to be done with this?" he growled.
I wasn't sure what time it was. The clock had been ticking for ages, and now the setting sun allowed a shower of gold to cover the walls of our workplace. It was such a beautiful sight, I couldn't take his attitude right now.
"People's lives are at stake, and here you are grumbling about not being able to get promoted?"
The city of Ember bustled with energy and was the most developed society in the universe. Humans had developed this interstellar city on a planet they had found 500 years ago. But although the civilization was so developed, crime rates were the highest compared to other planets. Most likely due to the fact that the average intellect quotient of a citizen was at 150 intellect points.
I work a prestigious job that is built upon solving mysteries and crimes. Our organization, the Overseas Protection Services, took after the FBI that existed on planet Earth five hundred years ago.
Ember was built upon a board's vision of the future, Overseas Protection Services was the byproduct. Yet, it was still an honor to this day to work there for more than two years as an orphan with a brother.
The system worked like this: with each small solved case, one would receive a "promotion". When one reached 5 promotions, they'd get ranked up. Ranking up meant more income. More income meant higher prestige. Higher prestige meant more respect. More respect meant more power. Without power in this city, one could not survive.
In total there are 5 ranks, and so far this case that we were working on was at least a 3/3 on the difficulty scale, which meant at least a year's time to solve it.
We were already on our second year.
"Hush Jade, we can always work on this tomorrow..." Ester sighed. She was always the responsible one who brought everybody together when conflict arose.
"Fine. I'm tired anyways." Eugene said as he logged onto the database.
He was fluent in most computer languages, Java, C++, Python... The one OPS uses was called, "Manuscript," and was the hardest language to understand. Every specialized tech agent of the OPS (Overseas Protection Services) was obligated to use this language for coding. Eugene was our tech agent on this team.
"You gotta be kidding me," Eugene said. "This is utterly-"
On the screen marked, "Completed" and attached to the sidebar was the photo of the convicts. In this case, 6. They were all graduates of the top 10 universities and decided that after finishing undergrad and majoring in Biological Chemistry, murdering residents of the city by slowly poisoning the air of the victims' houses would be a great experiment to whatever sick hypothesis they conjured. Their elaborate scheme eventually got unraveled by the top tier four experts, the notorious trio: Sam, Renee, and Zen.
"Oh my-" I muttered as I scrolled through the screen. I projected it into the air and looked at it carefully. Ester followed behind.
"New project then?" I asked.
Ester snorted then replied, "No, let's go home and celebrate our third failed assignment in a row."
Eugene looked at the floor solemnly.
I scrolled through some more tasks and assignments until I came upon an assignment that had two promotions marked on the side.
"Jade... you may want to take a look at this..." Eugene called.
"Share the screen," I said.
The heading read, "The murder of Lapis Pullox — Newly reported 29 minutes ago."
The room grew quiet as blood gushed to my ears. I could hear my own heart pounding faster as my breath got more shallow.
"Lapis? Why him of all people?" I thought to myself.
The tears flowed naturally as the emotions laced with the memory of my parents' death were suddenly recalled.
At this point, I couldn't breathe anymore. I had to grab the hyperventilation bag that was stored under one of my office table compartments.
"Jade... are you alright?" someone called.
Before I realized who it was, I had already ran to the teleportation booth to transfer back home.
