08-26-2018, 05:03 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-06-2018, 08:53 PM by Akari Miyakawa.)
A tall woman stood on a path of flaked gray rock. It was an exercise path, she thought, for it seemed to snake its way through the wooded area surrounding a nicely tended clearing. The clearing should, logic said, contain a building or series of buildings as the build up was quite lovely almost as if someone was trying to say, ‘if you like this, you should see what’s next!’ She thought of the long, winding drive through carefully spaced trees. Manicured flower beds framed the driveway as it wound around and out of sight to a parking area past a fountain of sorts. A sculpture of children hand-in-hand encircled a white-stoned perforated pad. Spurts of water arced from hole to hole, sequences carefully choreographed, so that it appeared to spring as though alive; as a dolphin might jump from the sea and back again. Short spurts, long spurts and then longer still. Always perfect, always into the holes faster and faster with nary a splatter to waste. The crescendo seemed to end with a mass jetty straight upward and then the shorter sequences started again. Piercing blue eyes watched it in silence for a time, lost to her own thoughts and theories. Was it a terrorist attack? No one was claiming it. Accident? Perhaps. If not, what were the motives for killing eighty people. Eighty?
The path crunched beneath her boots as she made her way toward the steaming footprint of what had been an orphanage and school for ‘gifted’ children. That last part was a closely guarded secret though. The air warmed as she neared. Unnaturally fast, maybe ten degrees a foot. The smell...ammonia. White powder and black ash remained. That was literally it.
The bulk of the medical rescue vehicles had gone as there were no bodies to recover although one of the fire crews remained, looking very subdued. This was not a normal fire though, clearly. She’d spoken with the investigators, the local ones. CCD Inspectors were going over the site now, collecting...samples. She’d ridden up with them from the small airstrip nearby. The chemical expert, Ian, had a theory she agreed made sense and he was testing it now with the equipment in his field lab. Really more of a formality. A drone flew overhead cataloging the area from the sky.
Her wallet vibrated in her pocket. The message said a team was prepping for deployment to Turkey. Apparently she was not going to stay here long. Still, she had come here for a reason. One last look. She ducked her head inside the tent. Ian had all but grown a microscope for a head. “Hey, Bill Nye…” The scientist flipped a bird in her direction. That drew a grin, they’d worked together a long time. He knew all her old jokes. “I’ve gotta run. Tag me with the results, okay?” The man’s eyes never wavered from his task. “Sure thing, Boss.”
Captain Akari Miyakawa, USN (Ret.)
Vice President, Private Sector Security
Warder International Inc.
The path crunched beneath her boots as she made her way toward the steaming footprint of what had been an orphanage and school for ‘gifted’ children. That last part was a closely guarded secret though. The air warmed as she neared. Unnaturally fast, maybe ten degrees a foot. The smell...ammonia. White powder and black ash remained. That was literally it.
The bulk of the medical rescue vehicles had gone as there were no bodies to recover although one of the fire crews remained, looking very subdued. This was not a normal fire though, clearly. She’d spoken with the investigators, the local ones. CCD Inspectors were going over the site now, collecting...samples. She’d ridden up with them from the small airstrip nearby. The chemical expert, Ian, had a theory she agreed made sense and he was testing it now with the equipment in his field lab. Really more of a formality. A drone flew overhead cataloging the area from the sky.
Her wallet vibrated in her pocket. The message said a team was prepping for deployment to Turkey. Apparently she was not going to stay here long. Still, she had come here for a reason. One last look. She ducked her head inside the tent. Ian had all but grown a microscope for a head. “Hey, Bill Nye…” The scientist flipped a bird in her direction. That drew a grin, they’d worked together a long time. He knew all her old jokes. “I’ve gotta run. Tag me with the results, okay?” The man’s eyes never wavered from his task. “Sure thing, Boss.”
Captain Akari Miyakawa, USN (Ret.)
Vice President, Private Sector Security
Warder International Inc.