Wilderby - a city built in five years. A modem marvel of technology and experimentation. The best of the best are offered invitations to live in the city - the city otherwise known as The Capital of the World, or W.C. Home to the Prime minister of the World. It is here where we set out scene, this blog will store information on the place and it's inhabitants - mainly for my own benefit but this is also here for indie RPs now and then.
I’d seen many crimes before, so many that I could hardly count them. However, this one clearly took the cake for most shocking. In fact, it could take the cake, the shop it was sold from, then, even, the place that made said cake. In short, it was extremely shocking.
I also thought I’d turned myself off cake for a good while.
Both were torn apart, deep gashes littered the still forms. Snapped bone jotted out from places it shouldn’t be, pools of blood, the sickening colour of internal organs that were very much external now. Their ribbons didn’t seem to be missing, that ruled out a sick robbery but even still … this was the work of animals.
“Do we have a wolf problem, here in Wilderby – I mean.”
“Wolves? No, God no. Most vicious things here are feral cats as far as I know,” Senior was quick on the scene as always. He too was examining the dead.
It was a cold morning in the good ol’ World Capital, that’s what happens when bodies are discovered by people off for their morning jog. At least the bone-chilling air kept the heavy smell of death from getting any worse.
“This is going to be hell to clean up,” the taller man huffed, kneeling beside the nearest body. A male, he looked to be in his twenties. Beside his hand, or what was left of it, seemed to be a crowbar. A weapon of sorts? Self-defence?
Upon further examination it became clear that the next body, a woman, was in much the same condition, she’d brought a gun.
It looked like an antique, I even wondered if it was possible of firing. We continued our silent examination, both exchanging glances now and then.
After we were done pictures were taken, evidence bagged and the bodies were removed. The scene was gone the moment bystanders began to gather. Whist wondering back to the station Senior and I exchanged findings.
“They both had weapons,” I began.
“They were expecting this.”
“Yes, so, they had some warning, they knew their attackers.”
“Maybe,” Senior shrugged.
“Both perhaps in their late twenties, I didn’t see many links between them.”
“Damn sure I’ve seen them somewhere before….”
We paused, thinking back to where they might have been seen together. Finally, there it was.
“Musicians.”
DAILIN SHEPPARD PERFORMANCE CENTRE 6:30 AM
“Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh no, no, no, oh. No, this can’t be. Oh, no.”
The owner of the centre, Dalin Sheppard, was the first person we talked to. She had been setting up the joint as we walked in. It was a grand theatre, each sound echoes through the high ceilings. It could seat thousands of people, it was the main theatre and, naturally, the first stop in our investigation.
“Actors,” Senior muttered under his breath, pausing for a moment to catch the woman as she melodramatically fainted. It was somewhat sad that her emotions seemed so fake, after all, this was a very real situation, with very real fatalities.
“You know these two, huh?” I waved the two digital reconstructions of the pair. It had taken some effort, their faces had been demolished almost beyond recognition. The images flickered between each interpretation of how they might have looked, there were some arguments in the simulation department.
“Oh, oh, yes, oh – Dani and Dariee,” the woman placed her hand over her forehead, the other fanning herself. Senior attempted to get her to her feet, but she seemed quite reluctant to move very far from the man. “Our pianist and cello player. Oh my – they have a concert tonight, oh what will I do,” now she moved, grabbing hold of Senior’s collar and sobbing heavily onto him.
He moved a single hand up to pat the woman on the back. Senior gave me a look. Time to move this a little faster.
“Have they been acting strange recently?”
“Quite, quite,” she spoke between sobs. “They couldn’t focus, oh, the show was going to be a ruin I could tell!”
Ruin? If this show was this important to her, and they would have ruined it, that could make for motive.
“Dani promised to help me set up the stage last night. Oh, he is a true genius with set design. When he didn’t turn up I – well, I thought he’d stood me up for some cheap company,” now she seemed to be getting mad. It was only as anger began to set its roots that Senior was able to help the woman onto her feet and off of him.
“Here all night?”
“Yes, oh, yes all alone. All night. It really is a dreadful place when it’s empty,” Dalin attempted to move towards Senior once more, but the detective had already taken a good step back. He wasn’t the greatest in social situations at times.
“Cameras can prove that miss?” I interrupted, pulling out a book sized tablet from my shoulder bag. It didn’t take long to bring up the recordings from last night on a holographic screen. From there we could all see that Dailin was telling the truth.
She was quick to point to herself, and for a moment she seemed to be enjoying the view. I suppose confidence was necessary when it came to acting.
“And Dariee?”
“Oh, she didn’t turn up. I had no idea what was wrong with her, well, now I do. Poor thing. She had so much potential. Even more then that piece of filth Dani Firoo,” her face wrinkled and scrunched up until it formed an intense scowl. Seems we’d delved into something personal.
Senior took this as a chance to move on.
“That’ll be all now, ma’am. Just don’t leave the capital, we’ll return if we need more information.”
“Oh, oh, you can call me Dailin - .”
Senior was already halfway out the door, and I followed closely.
W.C DETECTIVE STATION (MY OFFICE) 9:00 AM
Two files had been prepared for this case, one on Dani and the other on Dariee. Both went through everything we had already seen, even added points on their background, family life, anything that could later come in handy.
As far as I was concerned it wasn’t related to their pasts.
The only thing interesting about both reports was the contents of the victim’s stomachs. Both seemed to have eaten a single piece of paper before their death. It had almost completely dissolved, however, thanks to the medical examiner’s quick thinking we had been able to synthesize both pieces.
Both were around the size of a fortune cookie message. They were identical.
KILL THEM FIRST
3:00 AM
Three AM, the estimated time of death. This raised many questions that I was determined to answer.
Firstly, why did the time of death match the time on these pieces of paper?
Secondly, why had they eaten the paper?
Finally, what on earth killed those people and why were they armed at the time?
W.C DETECTIVE STATION (FILE ARCHIVES) 9:30 AM
I found Senior by a rather large pillar of files. He pressed his hand to the pillar of codes, papers and stacked digital boxed. The hand print was recognized, and soon, boxes lit up with small red, yellow, green and blue lights all became white. This showed he had access to all files on the system, something even I wasn’t privileged with yet.
“Nothin’. Not even anything close,” he huffed as he flicked through various files that he brought up on a holoscreen in front of him. I couldn’t see it yet, so I pressed my hand against the pillar, noticing that only few files changed from their colours to white, then watched Senior go about his business. Finally I could see what he was looking at, even if some files were completely blank. I could only assume it was because I didn’t have permission to view them.
“What about animals? In general. Large killer animals, with claws,” I suggested, wondering if we were dealing with a serial killer or some odd gladiator ring of animals versing humans.
“Nothing completely animal could have done this, examiner said.”
“Completely animal … ,” it was the wording that made a difference there. “Partly animal? Somewhat animal?”
“Wouldn’t surprise me a bit. We’ve already got crazy scientists who think they can make clones and cyborgs and human robots and whatever the fuck – shit, sorry,” the detective rubbed a hand over his mouth, ignoring the fact that he’d just broken his own ‘no swearing’ rule.
“Yeah. It just doesn’t shock me anymore.”
There was a beep from our tablets, and in perfect timing, the examiner’s report had updated. It appears that there was mutated human and animal DNA in the wounds of both victims. This was only getting worse as we went on.
It was time to talk to the only people in Wilderby with a licence to experiment with human DNA. The Condraus.
CONDRAU LABS 11:00 AM
It had taken a while to get an appointment with the heads of the company. The Condraus ran a tight company with tight hours. In fact, the only reason we’d secured a spot was because the heads had agreed to miss out on their fifteen minute morning tea break.
On a more positive note, at least there was free tea and biscuits now. On a somewhat less positive note, neither Senior nor I drank tea.
We arrived early and were lead to the room, we took our seats and waited. It, like the whole place, had a constant colour scheme. White, Green, white and white covered the walls, chairs, everything. The whole place was so sterile and clean that it reminded me of a hospital.
It was at exactly 11:15 that both heads of the company arrived. On time, as always. Sitting directly opposite of us was a seventeen year old girl, Leslie Condrau, and her brother, Finnien Condrau. Finnien was around twenty one if I remembered correctly. Both had extremely pale completions with pale skin, and blonde, almost white, hair. Their eyes where bright blue and they were dressed as if they had just come back from a formal. Neat ties, fitted suits, with the slight exception of Leslie wearing a long skirt.
“You have fifteen minutes don’t waste our time.”
“Actually, brother, they now have fourteen minutes and thirty five seconds.”
“Of course, sister. I should have checked the time.”
They continued to rant amongst themselves, correcting one another, before Senior finally spoke.
“Cloning.”
“Yes, of course, Detective. That is what we do here, here at The Condrau Cloning Corporation. Seems I have once again overestimated your intelligence as an officer, or the intelligence of the police in general.”
“Oh, brother, don’t be so harsh.”
“You know I don’t have time for ignorance sister.”
There were reasons why I hated dealing with these two. They were both geniuses, both highest class with their fancy green ribbons, and they made sure to shove it in people’s faces.
“Yeah. But we need to know about any animal and human mutations. Or combinations, whatever you call it.”
“Oh – hybrids? Is he talking about hybrids?” He turned to his sister.
“I do believe he is brother. We don’t do hybrids.”
“My sister is correct, we don’t. One hundred percent human clones. We don’t even use pigs in out experimentation anymore. We’ve moved past that.”
“Advanced past that.”
“Far beyond that.”
As much as I would have loved to sit there and hear them gloat all day there were more important things at hand.
“Do you know of anyone who does or has?” I questioned, trying to sound a little softer or kinder then Senior had. It didn’t change the two heads of the company at all.
“No.”
“Yes.”
There was a pause. Leslie turned to her brother. Her brother didn’t return the glance.
“I know of one person.”
“Brother, I thought we agreed to share everything.”
“It isn’t significant. An old friend, nothing interesting.”
“I’m insulted,” she glared.
“Don’t pull game on me. We have five more minutes to entertain the detectives, let’s give them what they came here for.”
“Five minutes and nine seconds, brother,” she corrected.
“Thank you, sister. Now, where was I? Yes, a man experimenting with hybrids. He moved here a year before Wilderby opened to the public. He was the first to be given a cloning licence and since has had it revoked. As far as I know anything he will be doing will be illegal. His name is Renel Fickes. Go stop him, we don’t like competition.”
“Oh, so we’re ‘we’ again now are we?”
“We were always we.”
“Perhaps we weren’t when you neglected to share that information with me, brother,” she rolled her eyes. Leslie didn’t seem to have as much control of her emotions as Finnien did, maybe it came with age. The Condraus had reinvented their family motto as ‘Mind over heart’, which seemed to have turned them into somewhat unemotional rocks.
Ruthless unemotional rocks, could they have somehow murdered those people to protect their company and eliminate competition?
MY APPARTMENT 9:20 PM
Search for a Mister Renel Fickes had come up as fruitless as my fridge, which, at the moment had no fruit in it. I’d taken to eating vegies recently.
MY appartment was a small studio apartment, with the small change that two rooms came off it. The bathroom and the bedroom. It wasn’t decorated with much, merely some pictures from home, a single flag and some reindeer bells from my parent’s farm. Homey, empty, quiet.
Detective Simon Picard. I liked the ring of that. But the title came with its downsides. One being that I couldn’t shut my eyes without seeing the image of those demolished bodies. It was only the fact that I promised I’d resume the search for Fickes that allowed me to sleep.
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