Episode Two: Investigation Part 1

When CORE returned from his second trip around the city, he found Ace sitting on the floor with papers scattered all around her.

“What are those?” CORE asked as Ace looked up from her work.

“Copies of the police reports,” she said before looking back down.

CORE looked around at the papers before coming up with another question, “How did you get them?”

“I went and grabbed them,” she said before finding a somehow judgmental android. “I’ll give them back,” she said defensively.

After noting the pattern in which Ace was sorting the papers, CORE helped her sort through them. As time went on and it got darker outside, CORE noticed that Ace had started to work more slowly. He watched her head look up towards the kitchen before she shook her head ever so slightly.

“Notice here,” Ace said picking up a paper. “This string of burglaries started recently. They all appear to be targeted thefts.”

She picked up all of the reports that followed the trend and wrote the names of the items that were stolen and where they were stolen from on a notepad. She looked at all of the items for a moment before handing the notepad to CORE.

“CORE, what could be made with these,” she asked.

CORE studied the words before simply saying, “A bomb.”

“Would any of these substances leave traces that we could follow?”

“I could trace this material here; it leaves a trail,” he said pointing to one of the items listed, “but I would need at least a day to construct a tracker.”

“Okay,” Ace said while standing up, “While you work on that, I'm going to return these papers then see if there is anything to see at the bomb site.”

Ace normally enjoyed riding her motorcycle through the city, but this night she found no enjoyment in it. The crater that the bomb had created was easy to find. It was a crater after all. Ace kicked down her kickstand but stayed on her bike to look at the crater. Nothing stood out to her but things were also getting a little fuzzy.

Deciding that she needed a closer look, Ace swung her leg over her bike and walked into the crater. The lights from the city did a good enough job of lighting the area for her to see. Still, she saw nothing that interested her.

The stillness of the place which had only days before been so violent was haunting. Ace took in a deep breath before turning around to walk back to her bike. As she turned, a flash of light caught her eye. She turned to face it and walked to it.

The small piece of metal she picked up had the letters “Ca” painted on it. The rest of whatever had been written had obviously been blown off with the rest of the piece of metal. She dug in the dirt for a moment to see if the rest was there but it was to no avail. She left the crater and drove back to the base.

Once she was there, she sat on the couch looking at the piece of metal. Was it part of the bomb or was it just part of something that had been blown up? It was a lead she knew she was going to follow up on but she also knew that she had to follow up on the places that were stolen from and later on the material that they were going to trace. As the thoughts swirled around in her mind, but before she could decide which lead to follow, Ace fell asleep.