Arriving at Philip's place, Maria was shocked to see how beautiful his house was in person.
It was a huge mansion painted cyan with a mixture of white. There was a swimming pool at the top and a small water fall in front of the mansion. His compound was at least 20 acres from what she was seeing, but she couldn't sight any human being, only robots moving around doing menial jobs.
His house was built in the outskirts of a forest at the edge of the city.
She could see his huge garage not too far from the mansion and wondered just how many Rides he had in there.
She knew that all this could not have come from detective work alone. Yes they were being paid well but the way his place was built, it would have cost close to a billion dollars if not up to.
She wondered about his identity, but the problem was that Philip never let anyone know about his background. He was always secretive when it came to his family, even to his friends and no matter how much any one of them tried to investigate secretly they could not find anything out about his background.
In this world, if you couldn't find any information about someone, even after becoming one of the best detectives it meant that the person's background was very powerful, maybe the most powerful, because even the mayor of the city could be investigated.
Getting into the house, Philip took Maria straight to his study.
"Joseph, Construct a holographic image of the city map." Philip instructed,
"{Yes, master Philip}" the AI replied
Philip and Maria sat down while a robot brought them tea.
Zhooomm!
The map was displayed in holographic form.
"Pinpoint the locations of the recent crime scenes..." Philip instructed once again and red dots appeared on the map.
Maria immediately understood that Philip was trying to join the locations together to see what shape it was forming and if it could give them a clue.
Just as she thought, Philip gave the order for the AI to join the locations together using lines.
Lines were drawn, connected from one dot to the other to form a shape but it wasn't any known shape. Philip asked for the lines to be drawn in a different ways, several times until it finally formed something meaningful.
"A beak of an eagle?...." Maria asked with uncertainty.
"Joseph construct a full diagram of an eagle on the map, so we can pinpoint possible next target locations...", Philip said immediately they saw the shape it formed.
"Isn't this a little too far fetched... which terrorist organisation or gang would try to do this and give us clues about where they're are attacking next?... what if it's a trap to mislead us?..." Maria asked solemnly, not seeing any sense in the new discovery.
"Even if it's a trap, we have no choice but to willingly enter it.... we don't have any other leads to follow..." Philip replied while checking the possible locations of a next attack.
"We'll have to go to 'John Carlo street' at the edge of the city and rent an apartment there so we can keep an eye on the neighbourhood..." Philip said
"I heard that that place has poor maintenance because it's at the edge of the city and only the lower class people stay in that area, so how are we going to blend in?.." Maria asked, intrigued about what Philip had in mind.
****************************************
**********Several hours later **********
In a small apartment at the edge of the city.
"Mr and Mrs Ahmed, welcome to our neighbourhood.... I'm sure you'll enjoy staying here, since it's your first time in this city as newlyweds.... don't worry everything here is in order and this apartment is sound proof, hehehe... " the landlord kept smiling and winking as he spoke to them.
The newlyweds were none other than Philip and Maria. Philip felt the urge to murder someone as he kept his fake smile on.
'Those old geezers.... how could they do this to me and with this woman for that matter ' Philip thought in his mind.
Before coming here, Philip updated the higher ups on the investigation and they were ordered to observe the neighbourhood as a couple, so that the criminals would not be suspicious of them.
They later settled down after the talkative landlord had left. The next step now was to get to know their neighbours. Some of the equipment that Philip brought with him were the stealth drones.
Those drones could go invisible and tail a person without being noticed. Another one of their features was the fact that they could separate into many smaller forms to spy on more areas.
Philip activated the six that he brought with him and right before their eyes, six became twelve and twelve became twenty four.... but that was not the end, the kept separating till they were one hundred and thirty four.
Maria had already set up the screens, in which the footage showing inside of their apartment kept dividing and dividing until they got to one hundred and thirty four.
The drones were now as tiny as a pinky finger.
They dove out of the apartment windows in invisibility mode and the spying began.
-
By the time night fell Philip went out in black hoodie to blend with the night while Maria stayed in watch the footage that the drones were sending in, they kept their comms on, so that if something came up they would be able to communicate with each other.
Philip jogged across the street, passing buildings by as he kept his eyes peeled for anything suspicious.
It was a residential area so there were only a few tall buildings, while most of the houses were bungalows.
By one in the midnight Philip was still out and there was no sign of anything suspicious.
*sigh*
'I've been reduced to a mere night guard' Philip thought to himself as he kept jogging around and checking out the silent and dark alleyways, with less activity.
After spending the whole night on patrol he returned back to the apartment.
This same routine was repeated for three days straight.
Maria was starting to feel like they were on a wild goose chase but Philip felt that this was just the calm before the storm, he could feel that something serious was about to happen and his instincts had never failed him.
-
When he was out on the fourth night he carried a dagger made of the strongest metal(Eredium) and custom made pocket pistol with him, which had a range of about two hundred metres and when it was fired, the bullet could pass through steel and bullet proof glass. His weapons were always top notch .
Philip was jogging around and alley way when.....
*Ahhhhhh!*
He heard a scream from a corner and ran over, in a few seconds he got to there but the moment he turned around he bumped into a person.
Gbam!
They collided.... Philip moved half a step backwards but the other person wasn't so strong and fell to the ground sliding a few centimetres away.
"Ouch!" Philip heard a feminine voice and looked downwards.
The person happened to be a woman who looked to be in her thirties.
"Sorry... my bad" Philip apologised as he helped her up, he knew how much force he used when he collided with her and if he didn't stop himself from slamming into her completely she would have broken some bones.
"Were you the one who screamed?" He asked after helping her up.
"Ye..s there was a snake over there.." she pointed with her arms trembling.
"Oh... a snake.." Philip said disappointed that he got his hopes up for nothing.
He walked over to where she pointed, a little bit surprised at the fact that a snake could enter the city.
A snake about 3.5metres long with the colour unknown because of the darkness, was crawling around. It saw Philip and started hissing at him while moving in his direction.
Swoosh!
The snake lunged at him, but he caught it by the head.
Pop!
He squeezed it with his bare hand and the head of the snake bursted open.
"Aww.... i got some of it's brain matter on my clothes..." Philip complained while rubbing his hoodie.
The woman was dumbfounded, but before she could say anything Philip had already left.
Philip kept running around until he got to another two storey building. He looked up and saw one of the lights flickering on and off.
"Maria, check what's going on in there..."
Philip spoke through the comms and waited for Maria's reply.
"Get in there right now!" Maria shouted on the comms after getting footage from indoors.
Philip immediately jumped over the fence and landed inside by rolling over.
He ran to the door and started banging it.
Gbam! Gbam! Gbam! Gbam!
"Open up.... I am a detective from the force...open up or I'll be left with no choice but to break this door down..." He kept banging while talking but he didn't get a reply.
"What's going on in there Maria?.." he questioned impatiently.
"I can't explain, just get in there now or this place is going to become the new crime scene...." Maria replied anxiously.
Gbaarr!
Philip kicked the door with force, and it separated from its hinges immediately flying far into the house.
He didn't even wait for it to land on the floor before he dashed in with vigor and ran upstairs. Maria directed him to the bathroom which was wide open by the time he got there.
Philip entered an was shocked to see what was playing out in front of him.
A woman tying a towel with water dripping from her body was standing in front of the mirror with her hands dropped on both sides of her body, but her there was a red line on her neck which was gradually expanding from one side to the other.
Her throat was being slit but there was no sharp object placed on it.
It was like she was being cut buy an invisible dagger.
Philip moved over to her and looked at the mirror, only to be shocked again.
Her reflection in the mirror was holding a dagger and cutting her throat, contrary to what she was doing. She looked like she was in a trance as her eyes had a blank stare without expression while her reflection in the mirror was smiling and happily slitting her own throat which was happening to the real her.
Philip held her and started shaking her, trying to wake her from her blank state.
"Hey! wake up..." but he got no reply from her.
He tried severally but was met with the same result.
He didn't want to go near the mirror, afraid of what would happen if he touched it, so he brought out his pistol.
"You have no business being here human!" a deep voice and two large eyes appeared in his mind.
The sound of the voice was like thunder and the pair of eyes looked like there were staring deep into his soul. Philip was frozen with fear, he tried to move, but it was like as if all his strength had left his body. Cold sweat started forming at his back as he kept struggling to break free from the hold of the voice over his mind.
Aarrrghh!
Philip screamed out as he got control over his body back.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
He shot bullets in quick successions at the mirror, but it was like as if there was a force protecting it.
Only a small crack appeared on it which was fixing itself up quickly.
"A mere human managed to break free from my mind control? Begone!" the voice appeared again in his mind.
Scrreeeecchhh!
This time Philip mind felt like it was being broken to pieces as sharp sounds assaulted his mind.
Aaarrrrggghhh!!!
Philip screamed as he clutched his head in pain. He couldn't do anything but kneel as he tried to fight the pain.
After a while he stood up slowly still clutching his head, but moving forward bit by bit as he tried to get close to the mirror. He knew that if he could just get rid of the mirror the pain would end so even with the pain he kept moving forward.
"Just how much willpower does this human have?.... I must not let him get to the mirror" The voice increased the intensity of the mind intrusion.
Arrggghhhhhh!
Philip screamed in agony once again but he didn't stop till he got to be mirror.
He lifted the mirror up and then....
Swoooohhhhh!
He disappeared straight into thin air.
Crash!
The mirror crashed onto the ground and broke into several fragments, while the woman that was formerly in front of the mirror fell to the floor unconscious.