Case - 1 : Prelude.

I walked through the drowsy halls once again as I started to leave the depressing casino that had held me protected in the current situation, like it had all those years ago.

"What are you going to do now? How are we going to leave?" The lady asked.

"Leave? No, we won't be doing any such thing."

"Huh?" I could feel the lady gaze at me once again.

"We'll be escorted."

I continued walking in the ensuing silence until I followed the paths until I reached ones that I remembered from memory inside the building as I led myself to a rather large cupboard that housed various cleaning items, some were fluids while others were just sponges and dirty clothes.

Time had made its marks apparent since it seemed to have not been touched or even maintained after its last owner had not maintained it or even touched it again as made clear from the plethora of cobwebs all over it.

"What's here?" The lady asked me with a little confusion clear in her voice, but I readily ignored her as a sense of nostalgia took over my emotions, and I pushed through them just as I did with the cupboard to reveal a door behind it.

A door that even the lady beside me was surprised existed.

The door was unassuming, something not many people would pay more attention to than a glance at, even if they even happened to register its existence in the first place. It looked perfectly normal and had a metallic color, even though it looked just like any other plastic door. The handle was a simple handle bar that would sink in once it was pushed to open the hallway beyond it.

A hallway that was special.

"What's beyond there?" The lady asked with impertinent curiosity.

"Nothing special to anyone else."

I pushed the door open and was greeted with the sight of a dark, shallow hallway that was illuminated by the interruption of its seemingly untouched darkness that had settled into it since the last few decades.

I used my body's memory to search for the switch on the wall, but then realized I was slightly shorter the last time I was here.

With a sharp *flick* the switch flipped and brought with it the brightness that one would rarely expect to exist in the scene it illuminated.

The room had wires strung all across the room with multiple papers clipped to them all around as the smell of chemicals wafted in the air from the long evaporated chemicals that had been left to dry out in the room.

Boxes lay strewn about all across the room with papers filling them to their brim, some even overflowing and spilling out onto the floors or the shelves and tables they were placed on top of.

"What are all these?" The lady beside me asked with curiosity, since she had probably never seen such things in her life.

"A lab. A lab for the ancient art of picture making."

"Huh?"

I bent over and picked up the closet picture that had been trapped under my feet as I had stepped onto it in the darkness.

Picking up the paper whose thickness had a familiarity that brought up plenty of memories I wanted to forget, I handed over the picture to the lady beside me in an unassuming fashion as I walked deeper.

Scanning around the multiple boxes inside the room, memories about my organized structure for labeling them came into view when I soon found the boxx I was looking for.

"*GWACK*"

The lady almost vomited in reflex but stopped herself purely because she had been through similar things, but then looked at me with anger and injustice, her eyes demanding an answer.

"Those are some of the 'secrets' of this place. Something that happened before you were here. It was the reason I became a police officer. It was also my first mission as a police informant two decades ago."

"What's the use of coming here if the mission was two decades old!? Won't all these pictures be useless anyway?"

"In view of the law, yes. But among personal relationships? No. Spouses can sometimes be scarier than any other law since a divorce can be bad for their 'images', strange people."

The lady just stared at me and then back at the photograph in her hand and then at all the boxes filling them in the entire room.

"There are a few thousand pictures here."

"Who do you think made those tunnels you used?"

"You should've had an insider helping you still."

"Silias." I spoke as I watch the name send a chill down her spine.

"No way. Not him. He's an even bigger monster."

"I can see how you would think that." I said with a slight smile that unsettled the lady as I watched her clench her hands until her knuckles turned white.

"Won't you arrest him?" she asked.

"No. He's not the one. And forget about it. Right now, we have something else to take care of."

I went back to looking at the dusty box in front fo me that had been filled with photographs to the point it was spilling and picked it up causing dust to waft everywhere.

I placed the box on the table and looked at the stacks upon stacks of pictures that had filled it. Something that would send the entire city into a spiral if even a single one of them got out. But I turned my attention back to the shelf.

A single box that had only now come into view which was earlier hidden by the box I had picked out remained on the back of the shelf.

I reached out and pulled the box closer and saw that it held just a single picture in it.

A single yet highly important picture I had stashed just in case something drastic like that situation I was in ever happened.

'Great idea, young Dave. If I ever had a time machine, I'd return to thank you endlessly.'

I picked the image and looked at it with burning intensity.

I remembered the memories around the picture as clear as a bright sunny cloudless afternoon day that was tainted with a strong emotion of disgust.

The lady came by my side to look over at the picture and just a fraction of what she saw stunned her as she stuttered, "Is that-"

"....yes. It's how we'll get escorted. I wasn't bluffing."

".....are you sure that's the right thing to do? There are surely other people in here that'd be better to deal with for the same simple thing like escorting you to a different place."

"Oh. No. This isn't just for escorting me somewhere. It is for something much more."

"What would that be? The thing in your hands could start an entire war if you were not careful about it!"

"No. I just want a promotion. A much-needed one."

I scanned the image using my AR glasses and placed it back into the box as I gave one final look around at everything in the room that I hoped to never return to and left with the lady following behind me.

"Now what?"

"You got a line connected to the network here?"

"....yes."

"That's enough then. Call this number." I said as I sent the number over to her using a proximity transfer.

"What do you want me to say?"

"Oh, just leave this message, 'Maven Malady wants to support Sergeant Dave.'"

"...won't that reveal your identity?"

"....And?"

I continued walking towards the landing pad I had arrived at.

Behind me I heard the nervous footsteps of the lady beside me following in her stilettos with her quick steps restricted by her pencil skirt and her innate fear of calling the person she was making contact with.

Her footsteps suddenly stopped when she took a deep breath and after a moment the words. 'Maven Malady greets you. He wants you to support Sergeant Dave.' left her mouth as she immediately began rushing to stand beside me once again.

"That was nerve racking. And I only now realized what you did there."

"Oh? What was it?"

"You want them to think I was the one who worked as your spy, since I'm leaving with you."

"Hmm….that's a nice cover story. Maybe I'll use it. Honestly, I hadn't thought that far ahead. You just happened to fall into my lap and fit into the plan perfectly."

"No need to lie. I'm not against it. It's just a little scary."

"Not afraid?"

"Fear? I lost that a few minutes ago when I decided I'd kill myself today."

"I see."

I continued walking with the lady beside me when we reached the end of reception. The lady stopped to look at it for a few seconds but followed after me once the doors to her freedom outside opened.

"What now?" The lady asked again, but I just looked at the clock in the corner of my vision projected on my AR interface.

"They should be here any minute now." I said as I watched the skies as the bouncers closed the doors and looked at the lady beside me with some confusion while she just ignored them.

Sirens blazed and filled everything around the city as a fleet of police vehicles of all proportions arrived at the same location, with the one person I terribly wanted to ignore leading them.

The woman with hazel rose hair with colorful gray eyes looked at me with a proud smile that shouted of her status above me, her helmet came off as she floundered her hair and gave a sharp glance at the lady beside me and looked at her with disgust while doing the same with me as she dropped loose the shiny handcuffs in her hands.

I looked at the unwilling expression of the officers behind her and put it to the back of my mind to focus on her annoying voice that drove nails into my head each time she spoke a word.

"Welcome Mr. Dave. Have you finally decided to get arrested for unlawfully impersonating a police officer and interfering in the investigation of an active case?"

I ignored her and looked beyond for my ride as I watched a lone HoverSteed ride down the aisle of flying traffic at a steady pace, whose rider was smiling and grinning from ear to ear.

"Sergeant Dave! Officer Larkin reporting for duty is at your service!"

Larkin said as he jumped down and walked ahead, past the woman I ignored, much to her annoyance as she interrupted while I got on the hoversteed.

"What are you doing, Larkin, you are abetting in the escape of a wanted criminal. Do you want to be arrested too?"

"What do you mean, Lieutenant Gracewell? I have an order from the Mayor that says I must escort Sergeant Dave to his location. Are you perhaps going to arrest him? Your own superior? On what grounds?"

I ignored their banter and spoke, interrupting the two before either could respond. "You. Take her and follow us." I said, pointing at Gracewell with my chin.

Gracewell showed the most uncomfortable expression I had seen her make in a while, something that satisfied me to no end as I turned ahead and patted Larkin's shoulder to tell him to pick up the pace.

"We've got a case to solve and a culprit to catch. The rest of you can go back to your positions, treat what just happened as a training drill of what to do and act on neutral territory."

"Sir Yes sir!" The cadets, officers and the lieutenants all saluted me, but I couldn't find one person among the crowd.

'Is he hiding somewhere? Or cleaning up his tracks again?'

'Well, not like it'll do much any way.'

The hoversteed hummed under me softly as its propulsion system picked up speed, and we were off to capturing the culprit.

"Where to Sergeant?" Larkin asked over the air that was hitting our faces.

"The place we were just at!" I shouted back as I heard Gracewell follow behind me on her own HoverSteed with visible anger, while the lady on her back seat looked relaxed and appeared to be smiling.

'Hmm…I forgot.….I should ask her name later.'