Chapter 9: Aftermath

"You have breakfast yet, Rook?" The man was older and pudgy, his belly sticking out past the belt where his badge was currently displayed. He wore a light gray, 'retro' tweed coat with black patches on the elbows, off white shirt with fashionable black tie, and dark black pants that were just a little bit too snug. His curly mop of dark brown hair was just beginning to gray, though his beard and mustache were more gray than brown.

"You know me, Sarge," the young woman said lightly. She sighed inwardly; she was a six year veteran but she'd just made detective; of course she would be the rookie again. "Already had my bagel with my usual lox schmear."

Julia Feinstein had joined the Detroit Police Department right out of high school; at the time, it was more important that she was a woman than whether she had a college degree. She had graduated second in her class from the academy – and found herself being little more than a paper pusher with occasional use as a human traffic light during sports events.

She never complained about it, however, just resolved to work harder. Thanks to departmental politics, she had been up for promotion in two years and then up for promotion to detective in two more. She had been passed over the first time but this time there had been added pressure to have women join the 'men's club' that the detectives force had become.

She knew she was looked down on because of the way she made detective but she didn't let that bother her; departmental politics were not her fault. Blame the mayor. She was just concerned with doing a good job and being a credit to the department.

Of course, it didn't help that she was found attractive by most males and many females. She was 5'8" of thin determined police detective. Still, she didn't need the snarky looks and under-the-breath comments, so she dressed to minimize her attributes. She wore her long, light brown hair in a severe bun and even went so far as to wear a chest binder to flatten her generous boobs. It didn't work as well as she'd hoped, but she continued to try.

"Might want to sit this one out, then," the Sarge replied.

"Bad?" She asked the Sergeant of Detectives.

"Bad enough that you should just stay out here for now," Sergeant Gillford replied. "We got one vic in that black caddy over there; throat's cut from ear to ear. The others are down in – well, a basement beneath the basement. A sub-basement or something. It's dark and you can't see much. We got Edison setting up a jennie in the backyard and we picked up some flood lamps that they're setting up down there. The place don't have no power – not even a line going to the building. Just wait out here til we get everything up – and don't let Arrowmark or Beuschamp goad you into going in either. They love to haze rookies and I don't need you stumbling around down there and contaminating the crime scene." He snorted. "Not that there's much to contaminate. The fucking place is cleaner than a virgin's cunt with a lemon douche."

"Lemon?" Julia asked.

"Don't ask," the sergeant waved. "The whole place smells like lemon vag cream."

Detective Feinstein ignored the colorful terminology. If you wanted to hang in the boy's club, you sometimes had to put up with the lingo. She looked around; the place looked to be secured by the book. Two patrol cars blocked off either end of the street and the familiar yellow police tape hung from the fence pronouncing this a crime scene. "So, what've we got?"

"Bodies and body parts," Gillford replied. "We got an anonymous call this morning tipping us off to this place. Told us to look for a door in the front closet. We found a door alright; the stairs went down past the basement to some kinda sub-basement. When we got down there we found three rooms. In the main room were a desk and 7 bodies; one guy laid out on the desk and 6 on the floor. Thick sheets of plastic under all of them. Very little blood, though."

"Killed somewhere else and dumped here?" she asked.

"Doubtful," Gillford replied. "I figure they was all killed down there. We've found bullets in the walls and it looks like they was shooting at the desk. It's riddled with dents. Pretty fucking strong desk."

The older man grunted. "The bodies on the floor are what make it bad, though. The one on the desk is laid out like he's just asleep; his arms are crossed and everything. He's got two to the chest. The bodies on the floor are mostly in pieces – and each one's been castrated with their cock and balls stuck in their mouth."

It took an hour for the Edison crew to show up with a portable generator. By then, the outside was a cluster-fuck. The medical examiner had shown up as had the CSI techs. The crowd around the house was thick with everyone staring at the house in wonder. Gillford had officers canvassing the streets but no one admitted to knowing anything about the house nor who had been living there.

Detective Feinstein could smell the scent on the air as she entered the building; it smelled like death. Well, death and some kind of antiseptic. She grabbed a handkerchief from her pocket and covered her nose and mouth. Julia knew that breathing through her mouth would help alleviate the smell but she worried about forgetting; getting a noseful of decaying meat wouldn't do any favors to her digestion.

She was following the Sergeant when her eyes caught something on the hidden door. There was the barest hint of discoloration above the door handle. "Hey, Sarge? Look at this. Looks like there was something here. A lock, maybe."

"Good eye, rook," the Sergeant said appreciatively. "Snap a photo and get down here."

She pulled the camera out of her pocket and snapped a few photos of the door and the jamb. She looked closely at both areas but nothing more jumped out at her.

As the sergeant had said earlier, the sub-basement was neat. The CSI guys were moving around, measuring and taking notes and photos. As she entered the room, she moved down and to the side to stay out of their way.

The body on the desk had been laid carefully, legs hanging over the end. The hands had been folded, one atop the other, on the corpse's stomach. It looked peaceful, like it might rise at any moment. Only the blood stains on the white shirt and the pallor of the skin hinted differently.

Then, there were the bodies on the floor. They were laid out in a row, a long piece of clear plastic beneath them. It was as if someone had put together a jig-saw puzzle; the one nearest her had had his head and one arm removed, but the head was laying just above the neck and the arm was separated from the torso by a few centimeters. Lying next to them were guns – rifles, nine mils, glocks and even a 357; with the exception of one rifle, that looked like it had been cut in half, all of the guns looked perfectly serviceable. The only disparity was in the crotch and mouths – every one of the bodies on the floor had had their genitals removed and stuffed in their mouths.

She stopped a CSI tech who was typing furiously on a pad near her. "Any ideas what happened here?"

"Some," the tech admitted. "We've mapped all of the bullet paths so we've got an idea. If the guns are beside the right bodies, maybe even better than an idea. The lab will have to get back to us on it, however."

"It looks like an ambush," the tech went on. "As best as we can tell, the guy on the desk was standing behind it when he was shot twice at close range. Then, for reasons unknown, four or five of these men opened fire on the desk. My best guess is that there were two men supposed to get killed today but the other one didn't like the idea and was hiding behind the desk. Then, by some miracle, he killed the six which were trying to kill him. Did it with some kind of very sharp blade – possibly a Sa'arm force blade. Same type of weapon cut off each set of genitals so probably the same perp; only one set was cleaved off perimortem. This mystery second person then cleaned up the place; we've found traces of an enzymatic cleaner, the nastiest acid I've ever seen, some kind of superbase and then a detergent. Whoever cleaned this mess up was very thorough. We haven't been able to pull a single biological trace other than what's on the bodies."

"Except we're missing a corpse," another tech remarked as she joined them. She looked Julia up and down and smiled. "You're new. I'm Elaine, Elaine Spivey. What's yours?"

"Julia Feinstein," the rookie detective remarked with a smile. "What do you mean we're missing a corpse?"

"Well, we're missing someone who was shooting at the desk," the tech replied. "We've got five different and distinct groove patterns in these bullets and only four guns on the tarp – well, besides those two which weren't even fired. A missing gun – so either the mysterious second potential victim fired at the desk himself, or someone got away. My bet is on the latter. You busy after this?"

Julia smiled. The tech was certainly forward. She looked the woman up and down slowly. Nice, graying brunette hair in a pixie cut and gorgeous brown eyes. She was maybe slightly over-weight but most of it looked to be in her boobs and hips, suggesting a nice, plush butt. She was also at least a decade older – but that would be a good thing. She didn't need temptation. "Absolutely not. Maybe lunch?"

Calix was bone tired. He had been exhausted to begin with yesterday evening but now he could barely keep his eyes open. He frequently caught himself opening his eyes only to find several seconds had passed. He'd read about this; micro-naps. If your body was tired enough, it would shut down right in the middle of whatever it was doing and go to sleep for a few seconds.

The problem was, he shouldn't be this tired. He'd frequently been up far longer than this and his body usually didn't need much sleep anyway. Besides, he'd slept during the CAP test, hadn't he? He knew that he'd expended quite a bit of energy in the past 24 hours but nothing that should account for how tired he was.

He was angry at himself and the situation but even the anger's jolt of adrenaline didn't compensate for his fatigue. He'd allowed Tomas to get away. The traitor must have been faking unconsciousness when Cal had headed for the back lab. When the young man had returned after dealing with Najun and Pedro, Tomas was gone. Cal had immediately started out to look for the missing man – but stopped when he didn't find him in the house or immediately outside. He'd found Marcos Contana, Rico's second, outside with his throat slit. It had to be Tomas' handiwork – or one of his goons.

He'd turned back because he had a lot to do and little time to do it. Someone may have heard the shots. It was rather unlikely that anyone had called the cops – people tended to mind their business around here – but it could happen. He needed to get the place as clean as possible before they arrived.

He ducked into his lab and grabbed some pieces of plastic tarp he had stored there. He put a large piece in the middle of the main room and started piling bodies there. On a whim, he made the whole thing very neat – correct body parts together and the individual weapons with the correct body parts. Another whim had him cutting off the traitors' twig and berries and force feeding them into their dead mouths; similar to what he'd done to Eddie but that bastard had been alive at the time. Maybe it would throw the cops off the scent. It never hurt to be thorough; he wanted to make sure he didn't miss anything.

As Cal dragged Najun's and Pedro's body parts onto the tarp, he began considering how he'd need to clean up signs of the battle. He wasn't sure a clean-up was necessary – he was going to leave the bodies after all – but he didn't necessarily want the police – or, heaven forbid, the Feds – to get their incompetent, corrupt hands on him or his tech. That could spell disaster for far more than the city.

Though he hated taking the time, he finally settled on five passes. First, he moved everything he wasn't leaving – which was, basically, everything except for the desk and bodies – into the bedroom; it hadn't been touched by the violence so should be relatively clean. He did leave the fusion reactor up, though; he'd grab that last. Next, he decided on a four step cleaning system – enzymes to denature the proteins and fats, an acid to eat everything else quickly, a base to neutralize the acid, and a lemony-scented power wash to rinse everything and make it all squeaky clean. He had a few worries and doubts but Cal thought it should take care of nearly everything. He moved the desk and bodies around as he cleaned.

Finally, he dismantled his lab down to the bare walls. The only thing he left was the fusion reactor; that would have to go last. He'd need the power for the lights. Then, he used the same four steps on the lab.

Cleaning everything took him to dusk – and it was all he could do to keep his eyes open then. As soon as night fell, he stole a pick-up truck and hauled everything to his parent's house, storing everything in a corner in the basement. He'd kept the house for just such an emergency; just in case he needed a safe house that no one knew about. Of course, Rico knew – or had known – but he had never even considered he'd ever have to hide from Rico.

It took him most of the night to get everything moved and cleaned. He'd gone through all three rooms thoroughly a second time with the same four cleaning passes just to make sure. More time wasted but better safe than sorry. Then, he'd put Rico's body on the desk and the other bodies neatly just in front of it. Finally, he disconnected the fusion reactor from the fuse box and, by flashlight, sprayed the wall where the reactor had hung and the fuse box itself. Finally, he lugged the reactor and cleaning supplies up the stairs, removing the lock from the last door and hosing it down slightly with acid.

Just after midnight, after he'd finally finished moving and cleaning, he'd picked up some fast food from an all-night place and left the stolen pick-up in their lot, 'accidentally' dropping two $20s into the glove box for gasoline and use of the truck. To the best of his knowledge, Calix had only truly stolen items from people who could afford them. It was probably a self-satisfying argument but by leaving the money Calix could justify having 'borrowed' the truck instead of stealing it.

The fast food joint was only four and a half blocks from his parent's house; the food was still warm by the time he got there. He made a pig of himself eating it all but he felt like he was literally starving even though he'd eaten just the previous day. Again, he'd expended energy but being this hungry was ridiculous. He was poor and had been poor all his life; he was used to missing meals. This just felt like something else.

He walked around like a zombie – keeping himself awake was SO hard – setting some rudimentary traps. Some tripwires, a bottle on the curtain rod that was attached to the front door, a tin can half filled with beans in front of the basement door and a few other odds and ends; the traps weren't anything that would hurt someone – it was possible, though the house was boarded up tight (except for the two 'secret' entrances) that vagrants might get in – but they should alert him.

After sewing up his cheek, he grabbed his mattress and tossed it on the floor near the pile of stuff from his old place. Almost before he could even think about it, he fell on the mattress and was out.

Cal woke, sweating and shaking. The nightmare had made him relive the previous day; it wasn't pretty. He'd watched Rico die again but this time the man's eyes held the look of accusation and disappointment. 'Why couldn't you save me' they'd seemed to say. 'Why did you let me die?'

He relived killing those men. Only this time, he had to second-guess every action, every response. Had he the right to kill them? Were his actions just petty revenge or were they necessary? Everything he knew screamed that he'd acted correctly, that their deaths or his own were inevitable. Now, though, now it was much more difficult. Now he had to deal with the second-guessing.

Finally, he let out the pain and misery he'd compartmentalized just before the fight. Pain. Misery. Guilt. He let them all roll through him. He cried – cried for Rico, the man who'd saved him after his step-mother's ... defection. He cried that he'd not been able to save him; that he'd not been fast enough or strong enough. He screamed out his pain at not having closed the fucking door behind him. He blamed himself; if he'd not been so stupid, so arrogant, so cocky – maybe Rico would still be alive.

He cried for Eddie and Charlie and Lupe and Chey and Najun and Pedro. They were family – his family in the Cholos – and he'd killed them. He hadn't hesitated. They were his own, members of his family, and he'd shown no mercy. He'd just cut them down where they stood. Sure, they were trying to kill him but he hadn't even considered trying to save them. He could feel the remorse now. He could let it rip through him and tear him apart.

When the grief had begun to take its course, though, his mind began cleaning up the trash. Mistakes were made; he'd made mistakes that had cost him dearly – and had cost Rico his life. In the future, he'd need to guard against the hubris he'd displayed. His skills were not infinite. His abilities were finite. He'd have to live with the guilt of his mistakes – but he would live.

His mind accepted the deaths of the six renegade Cholos. Their deaths, while tragic, were assured as soon as they'd open fire on Rico. Their deaths were assured when they'd decided to try to kill him. As he'd come to understand all too well in his recent life, Detroit was a jungle; in the jungle, it's either kill or be killed. In the future, he'd need to be more careful, to be more questioning of the people he called friend or family. But he would live.

Staring at the cold concrete floor, he calmed himself. He wiped away the tears, careful to avoid the gauze bandage on his left cheek. There'd be others; other tears and other times when what he'd done the previous night would haunt him. For now, though, he was back in control. It was one of the disadvantages of compartmentalizing things; you were only delaying the inevitable. Things he put in boxes in his mind would have to come out sooner or later; if not consciously, then of their own accord at times that might not be optimal.

He peeked through a crack in one of the boarded up windows; it looked to be morning. The house faced the east and he was looking out at the over-grown backyard; the house cast a long shadow, but the first streams of light were just barely tickling at the tops of the garage. About mid-morning, then.

But of the wrong day. He was taking off the armor when he happened to notice the atomic clock in the large corner of stuff he'd brought from his former residence. The clock was one of those digital ones that ran on a battery – now a power-cell – and updated itself from the NIST atomic clock. It showed the time and the date – except, at least from his perspective, the date seemed wrong. It read 'Sunday' instead of the 'Saturday' he'd expected.

He started working his way back, trying to figure out where he'd lost a day. Wednesday night he'd been at the GlobalTech building; late that night, he'd been captured and taken to the Confederacy vessel. They'd released him Thursday morning just before noon. Early Thursday afternoon, Tomas had killed Rico and he'd finished off Tomas' accomplices. It'd taken him that night and all day Friday to finish cleaning his former house – he had to be careful with the acid and he'd had to vent the place frequently to avoid the toxic fumes the acid caused. He'd come home just after midnight on Saturday and gotten to bed by at least 2am. It should be Saturday, not Sunday.