A New Family

[Alex]

Alex listened to Ivan as he speculated at things that could do this. Alex wouldn't put it past a reborn god to do something like this. They could manifest all sorts of things, she imagined killing with this power would be easy, potentially raping a girl would be trivial.

And Ivan jumped into the deep end quickly. Alex nearly choked as he asked her about manipulating someone's emotions. That was not something she was ready to talk about. She wasn't ready to tell him that she was on the weak end of the spectrum for Sentient. She sighed. "A Sentient could have done this. There are bad men and women among us like any other culture. But typically we take care of our own, in all manners of speaking."
She wasn't about to tell Ivan that they killed their own kind when they became to dangerous, or that the reason they did so was so that the police didn't look their direction or for that matter the Atharim.

Alex knew all too well what a visit by the Atharim could do when they set up on their homes. She'd lost her sister to them. "But not all Sentient can do that. There are varying degrees of power, and different abilities. I for instance can only read emotions. I can dig deeper than most because it is all I can do except protect myself from others like me."


Alex sighed and continued. "My mother and older sister are powerful in protecting themselves, others, they can extend their shields to multiple people, they are typically the ones who house those Sentient's with children who are still learning to control their ability."


She looked out the window. "My father and brother, and my half sister can all manipulate someone's emotions to varying degrees. My father's ability can be permanent. My brother is unable to push someone to that level. My half sister, I do not know, but I beleive her abilities were trained differently and she's unique among Sentient. But she is probably far more dangerous than my father."


She turned to look at Ivan, "So yes, someone could manipulate a person into having sex with them seemingly willing. However, our ability does not remove memory, my father can replace a past memory feeling with others of varying degrees which is how he makes an emotion permanent, but he cannot remove that memory altogether."


They pulled up to the station and Alex turned and looked at Ivan. "If we are going to have a proper monster squad, we need someone versed in the monsters. There are Atharim all over the world, I bet there are Atharim on the police force. You and me we are fine and good, but if we are going to these criminals with supernatural abilities, I think it's best there was one who could tell us about them. But I doubt they'd help the police anymore than we'd help them. Forget I said anything."
Alex looked up at the building and shook her head. "Maybe they found something on the tapes."

[Ivan Sarkozy]

So apparently he was Alice and had just fallen down the rabbit hole, because suddenly he found himself over-whelmed with a flood of information that hinted at a world he'd not even imagined. Course he should have. This was the monster squad.

He picked and wandered through the pieces of information she casually dropped, latching onto those that made sense to him and ignoring the rest, at least for now. "So....bottom line, a sentient?- someone like you anyway- might be able to do the rapes but still wouldn't be able to hide the memories."
He frowned. "That leaves us back at square one."


Something she said suddenly made itself known to him. They needed to talk to people who knew about these strange things. "What the hell is an atharim?"
he asked as he opened his door and got out.

[Alex]

Alex grinned and smiled. "A group of people who are very dangerous. Very skilled at hunting so-called monsters and with very little remorse. I've only met too in my life time. And neither of which I would actually want to have asked for help."
But thing was, she was actually considering it even thought she knew better. That girl who was Atharim, her half-sister and Sentient. The whole thing still boggled her mind, how had she survived.

"But it is not a topic we should discuss with in the convines of any precinct or out in the open. Like I said they have eyes and ears everywhere."


Alex walked into the office and hoped that she'd see the other two officers who were assigned to work this, and prayed the found something useful on the tapes. Beyond the profiling of this criminal, she wasn't sure what use she could be now.

[Ivan Sarkozy]

Ivan listened, stunned. A secret group that hunted monsters? He supposed that it should make sense. Up until recently, he hadn't know that they existed. Hell, his own abilities seemed kind of new. He hadn't heard of any....suddenly a video he'd seen on the internet flashed across his mind and he knew that it had not been faked up like people were saying, like the Consul's press release had hinted at. He understood the need for keeping things under wraps. You didn't want people panicking.

But suddenly it put Domovoi into a whole new light. Men- and presumably women- with powers like his could cause a lot of destruction. If Smiley had wanted a fight, that precinct building would've been very likely destroyed. The images from the video had been clear. Course, he didn't know how strong he was. Damn that he could only use the power when he was tense.

He was going to have to get around that. And practice. "Maybe you can introduce me to that friend of your not-friend."
He hadn't missed the way she smiled as she emphasized that. She was attractive, after all. Not exactly his type, but definitely a looker. She probably had little trouble that way. Working with her would be fun.

Looking around as if he could see these Atharim or whatever, he lowered his voice. "You'll have to tell me more about them later. And maybe let me meet one. We need some good intel. Seems to me, we should be allies of sorts."


And he was going to talk to the Chief. He had emphasized that non-lethal take downs were a priority. He wanted to know what kind of hardware they had access to. He was even willing to volunteer that they test some of it out on him. It wouldn't be right to use something untested on a civilian. But that block had to go.

They got back into the building and Alex went to an unused desk to work up a profile based on their interviews and the reports. Ivan went to the other officers working on the video for a progress update. Thank God computers did most of the work, unlike the old days, back when Pops was on the force, though he had just been a beat cop. Having to manually sift through all possible sources for the faces of the vics and then for a potential perp would have taken days and weeks. Instead, they were able to get something together during the time they had been out on interviews.

"When Dr. Pirozi is done, we can get started,"
he said to them. "The vics weren't covering anything. This happened."

[Alex]

Alex sat down at her desk and started compiling her notes. She read each report thoroughly and several times, jotting down thoughts, crossing things out she'd written before and adding new things. It was probably the most fulfilling part of her job, just reading and figuring and understanding the mind that was behind the person who did these horrible things.

It was probably a good thing she was going to see Bas later that night. Something fun to get out of the head of a man who was evil enough to rape women and humiliate them in the process, as if the entire act was not humiliation enough.

After a few hours of having enough she took the profile of the man who was likely have done the crime. He targeted mature successful women, so he likely had issues with what these women represented. The women were all early risers, all jogging through the park in the wee hours of the morning. Very likely he just took the opportunities that presented themselves. His attacks were unsophisticated. Probably young. Very likely a blue collar job. He took pleasure in leaving these women in nothing, keeping trophies of his exploits. The trigger was likely something recent having to do with a woman in his life. Maybe a girlfriend left or a lack of promotion that a female received instead.

Alex made copies of the report for all the officers who needed it and one for the official file. Now all they had to do was find the man.

[Drayson]

While Ivan and Alex were out and about, Detectives Favager and Köhl were hard at work. There were days worth of recordings from park cameras to be poured over, but luckily for the two detectives, they didn't need to do it all themselves. Through Captain Aleksandrov, they had access to the resources of the CDPS, and the two detectives were quick to farm the work out to more specialized staff elsewhere.

By the time the two returned, there was surprisingly little turned up from initial search of the camera footage. All the attacks had happened in areas no viewed by cameras, as had been confirmed by the cursory investigation the cases had been given when the victims had first begun stepping forward. That of course meant that the attacker knew very well were those cameras were, and how to get around the park without being noticed by them.

They would broaden their search in the coming days; parking lots and street cameras from ever widening circles away from the parks, but it was already seeming like they would be better served taking a closer look at the park staff itself, a thought they shared with Ivan before returning to their own tasks.