"Ouch!" they yelled.
Kai bounced a couple times in the dirt—it stunk of rotten eggs with a hint of phosphorus—and landed at the end of the road. Their heart bouncing back and forth as if trying to escape their ribcage only for one deep breath of icy daggering air to burn through their throat and onto their lungs.
"Fuck!" they said, letting themself fall on their back. The sky wasn't cloudy, there wasn't even a cloud for fuck's sake! And yet, the sun didn't burn that much either. They laid their hands and stretched their arms, every particle ran through their fingers as if it were a living thing. "My god!"
"I know, right?" Jarek's voice came from somewhere.
"This is sand!" Janitor-guy finished.
"It's… it's almost like—"
Jarek interrupted, "Like solid water?"
"No!" They shook their head. "Like a fragile bed of knives!"
"What?!" Janitor-guy said.
"Yeah!" They grabbed a fist full of sand. "It feels like it could cut but it doesn't from how tiny it is!"
"I don't think that's why it doesn't cut," Jarek laughed, "but yeah. It does feel kinda weird, I can concede that."
"Concede?" Kai sat up and turned to their brother. Their smile became bigger than they'd like to admit as their eyes settled on his hands: Jarek was holding Janitor-guy! Finally! "Oh, forgive me, your majesty!"
"Oh, why, you are now forgiven my loyal subject!"
"Oh, a great many thanks, may the Lord be ever in your ass!"
"And in it, he shall stay, for it is wonderful to poo on gods!"
"What are you two doing?" Janitor-guy took one step back, half smiling, half unsettled. Kai bit their lip and made a hand gesture for Kai to help them stand up. Jarek's face suddenly turned into a tomato and his eyes avoided any contact with Janitor-guy. Kai giggled.
"S-sorry…" he murmured.
"Wow!" Janitor-guy said, Kai and Jarek turned to see where he was pointing.
"Wow indeed," said Jarek.
"Welp, I think it's safe to say whoever we captured at the precinct is either on his way to this or became an odd-self." Kai talked with a grin.
"Yep!" Jarek hit Kai's head. "Don't smile at your comrade's murder!"
"Why not! He's an asshole!"
"Well…!"
"So this was the easy case?" Janitor-guy said. Kai bit their lip and headed for the crime scene.
"Yes!" they screamed, now running to the murder. "Of course it was!"
"My ass!" Jarek replied, "You just want to gloat to *our* version of the asshole!"
"Whaaaat?" they said in an increasingly higher pitch. "Nah! Me? Nevah!"
"Kai!"
"C'mon, Jar-jar!" They got to the crime scene. "You'll… fuck."
In the sand lied a lot and yet, nothing.
Xavier's body was in the center, his arms extended forming a cross, his eyes opened and whitened out, his mouth turned to a mess of dried blood and one hand missing. His chest had been burst open as if a spear had gone through, and yet his legs looked hammered into becoming unusable.
Surrounding him were plenty of burnt marks, all training the sand black and grey—though one made it a swampy green tending to grey. Patches of melted sand had crystallized into glass drowned in black blood while others still let off some steam as the cracked dirt on a desert.
And yet, what stood out the most to them, was in Xavier's right hand: a metal rod with cables slipping out as the burnt image of what it used to be, lied a couple of centimeters before his head began—which, made them, in turn, notice the burnt hairs and bleed out wounds on his neck.
"A halo." They said.
"What?" Jarek got near them, his gasp recognizing the same shape.
"No, that can't be!" Janitor-guy said as he came closer. "An angel doesn't use their halo unless—"
Janitor-guy held his stomach and turned around as vomit sprouted from his mouth. Jarek gulped, looking away and Kai took three steps forward before squatting to be nearer to Xavier's body. Their grin now turned into worry.
"We're asking for help right now!" said Javier.
"What?!" Kai stood up and turned, "NO!"
"Dude! He used his fucking halo!"
"Well, of course he did! The dude's dead!" Kai turned to the body and walked over to the arm with a missing hand. "And whoever they were must've had the technology for this! Which means they probably come from this time or further ahead!"
"No one can defeat a halo!"
"No one that we know of *yet*!"
"Kai, this is a Seer! Someone killed a Seer!"
"Well, most steam cases are about a murdered seer! There's a reason not everyone's allowed to go on one!"
"Yeah! But this—"
"Would give Xavier every fucking excuse to get Bain fired and make us get into the 'maiden program', which we both know is just a fancy stupid word for making us their fucking sla—"
"I know!" Jarek sighed. "I know…"
"So let's solve this!" They came closer. "Please?"
"Kai… *gugh*… Fuck! Fine! BUT, if we find another one of these guys murdered, I'm calling it in!"
"Yeah…" Janitor-guy stopped, "I'd probably get fired too, but…"
"No 'maiden program' for you," Kai replied. A grin drew on their face, longer than both men ever wished to see judging by the scared look on Jarek's face. "Well, then, let's solve a little murder, shall we?"
"I hate you!" said Jarek with a raised eyebrow and putting down his bag.
"You love me!"
Kai got close to the man and peeked into his backpack. All fighting and first aid equipment. They rolled their eyes and turned to Janitor-guy, his backpack was bigger than Jarek's, perhaps?
"YOU!" they said pointing at him. Janitor-guy flinched. "What do you have there? Anything interesting?"
"Oh, yeah!" He put his bag on the floor and took out three glasses. "I got the suits and the stopping clock, though… how long until the humans find him?"
Kai blinked a few times and opened the file, "According to the report, a couple hours. Ooh, damn! She cute!"
"Kai!"
"What?" They showed the picture of the discoverer to Jarek. "She cute!"
"Dammit Kai! C'mon, every time!"
"Fine, fine! But we'll have to interview her at some point!"
"S-so…" Janitor-guy began.
"YES!" Jarek shouted over Kai before they could speak. "It is enough time, Kai, please go look for the hand or… what are you seeing?"
"The thing in his remaining hand, it doesn't look like it's part of a halo, does it?" Kai whispered before grabbing a pair of glasses from Janitor-guy.
"I… I suppose not."
"It doesn't?" Janitor-guy asked.
"You don't know what a halo looks like?" Jarek said. "I thought all angels had one."
"What? Oh, no. No, no, no… I mean… maybe. I'm not really trusted around angels, maybe that's why."
"But training." Kai pointed out. "They make us study halos for the information they can record on their membranes! Why wouldn't they tell you if they told *us*!"
"Halos are covered in membranes?" Janitor-guy shook his head. "And… I don't… I don't know."
"What?" Kai took one step back, "NO! The halo's fuel is!"
"Right!" Jarek screamed, "If a halo broke here, then the fuel should send out its signal with the… hum… whatchamacallit?"
"Magnesium?"
"Yeah!"
"Wait all those reactions with cleaning purple glowy things… those are fuel-spilling?" Janitor-guy… wasn't that good of a janitor, was he?
"How did you not know that?"
"What?" Janitor-guy recoiled into a standing position and turned his sight somewhere in the distance. "Nope. No. Nah… I… I knew that, I just… I uh…"
"D-do you know how magnesium powder looks like?" Kai asked, pointing to his bag. The man coughed on his fist before gulping.
"Of course I do!"
After a while, Janitor-guy finally took out a box with the greyish metallic powder and handed it to Kai. They just glared with confusion, but time could run out so they handed Jarek the second set of glasses—the third was still with the other guy but maybe he wouldn't even know how to put it on… unless this was a game to him?
_He is still an angel, it wouldn't be above him. _
"Alright, let's begin!" Kai grinned.
* * *
One click on the lenses made the earpieces turn into spider legs, another one turned the spider into ever fractalizing nanobots in patterns of squares and triangles until a helmet was built and from it, the suit began, as the pattern changed from all-white into black and yellow stripes spelling out 'SEER'.
The suit finally turned the black tiles inside out reflecting light, as did the white ones, leaving behind a floating yellow word to the outside world—a precaution in case humanity came earlier than the files say they'd do to discover the murderer.
Kai took a deep breath in. The smell of a brand-new car and a hint of lemon in the suit always made them feel like floating in a sea of clouds above the two moons in Heart. Man was it a great smell!
Oooh! And let's not forget about the softness of every cushion surrounding their body! Better than any chair they'd even been handed at the precinct… or ever. Just like resting on a cloud of cotton candy—or so say the books from Earth.
"Awesome!" They said opening their eyes. The screen was already adjusted showing the two compounds it detected: phosphorus and sulfur. "Perhaps it did happen, huh?" Kai whispered and opened the magnesium.
Two tiny blows on the powder were enough for it to spread everywhere and get sent into every stain on the sand. Nothing fancy happened for a second, but after a while, the first flicker of light appeared. Another. One more. And again…
"The entire scene," they said. "it's covered in fuel."
Kai shook their head and walked closer to Xavier's body. Their lenses started picking up on every wound, determining how deep they went and an approximate of how long ago they were made.
"Time of death is a few hours ago," Jarek said.
"Yeah, wounds seem to be pre-mortem, all superficial except for—"
"The one giant hole in his chest?"
"Exactly."
Jarek leaned next to Kai. Both of them looked around, now centering on his clothes. All dirt around them indicated that a jump had been made, so whatever fight started, must've been before he came to this year. _Or he's just an asshole who got killed in a muddy environment and said murderer… but the halos… so he was definitely killed here. _
"The piece of metal," said Jarek, "it's not from a halo."
"What?"
"Yeah, it belongs to this time period. I'll pull up all uses of it—"
"Determine how odd it is first!" Kai muttered. "It would help more. The killer can't have gotten far, there are no indications of flying vehicles, and I think this is the third time period where people were paying for their gross abuse of natural resources."
"So if it's a scarce material, it should be sold by few people, I'm on it!"
Kai nodded and moved towards the head. Blank eyes. What could cause that? Did his halo malfunction? But they're wired to only work for the angel they belong to…
"Hey," they said standing up, "what happened to his halo?"
"What?" Jarek turned to see them.
"If he made all of this, and his halo broke, then… what happened to it?"
"Also, look," Jarek pointed to a wound on Xavier's shoulder. "There's burnt hair! I don't think it's enough for an entire DNA sequence but—"
"Maybe a profile, great!"
Kai stood up and grabbed the hair from the wound while Jarek took the piece of metal. Both turned to see Janitor-guy, and while they couldn't tell whether Jarek was smiling, his shoulders down and his now fidgeting finger suggested he was.
_Cute. _
"So, you know how to determine the oddity of a material, right?" Jarek said, Janitor guy flinched before turning to see Kai and back at their brother. He nodded.
"Y-yeah! Yeah… I can."
"Then… please?"
"Sure!"
"Then I'll go get this to the testing units, you did bring them, right?" Kai asked.
"I think Fred grabbed some."
"Are those the sandwich-shaped machines?"
Kai smiled, "Yep!"
They went to Janitor-guy's bag. It wasn't at the top—unlike all carefully placed powders, but at the very bottom. Should they scream at him or just let it go? It kind of feels like both.
They decided to sigh in anger.
"Don't put such delicate beauties like these out in the open!" They said. "Do you know how fucking hard it is to get one?"
"Not that much, we just stole a bunch!" Janitor-guy said while grabbing one of the powders. "These, however, if spilled could react with each other and implode everything."
"I… Well, I don't mean I accept your half-assed reason, but I respect the answer!"
Kai sighed once more and opened the DNA residue machine. It looked just like Janitor-guy said, made out of turquoise crystals that encased three different membranes and gels that directed electricity taken from the SEER's breath on the tube at the side. The membranes would diffract an image that a screen at the top showed the final results at the top of the sandwich. So, they blew on the hole and waited for the signal to drop and make the beeping sound of 'done'.
"Alright, so…" Kai said walking towards both men. "Thing here says we're dealing with a female, approximately my height and with light brown hair. Thought it might be colored that way."
"What do you mean might?" Said Jarek.
"Well, it detects some tainting, but I'm not sure if it's coloring or dried blood."
"Right… well, at least someone female."
"How about rarity?" They said.
Janitor-guy showed them the piece. The white powder on it had one single perfectly made circle. Jarek had his fists clenched and stood on his tiptoes. Whatever Janitor-guy made, their brother certainly liked.
"This means it's rare in this land."
"In this land?" They ask, "how could you know?"
"The circle. A line here would say that it's just rare throughout time, three circles that it isn't rare at all, and two lines a moderate rareness."
"Huh… cool!"
"Welp, do we know what material it is?" They asked, Jarek nodded.
"Copper, if you can believe it." He shrugged his shoulders. "I completely forgot this century lacked it because most was sent into outer space!"
"Right! In a few years missions should start, to get all that wasted metal back! Here's where organic metals were created!"
"How do you know all of this?" Janitor-guy said.
"How do you not?" Kai said.
"I'm already putting in all we know in case anyone wants to solve this," Jarek said, moving his fingers in the air. Show off (Kai still couldn't control that feature well).
"Anything?"
"Yeah!" Jarek pressed his chest and the hologram formed in front of them. Kai smiled at the sight. "*Her* name is Harry. She's the only copper merchant around here, and your height too!"
Kai smirked, "Awesome!"
Her eyes were a beautiful green, her clothes loose and black with silver patterns of lines and squares. She wore two shorts and the aluminum sandals classic to this time's lower class. Her light brown hair was shaved on the right side whilst in a bun closed by a net with aluminum tainted in golden paint. However, it was the thing in her wrist that took Kai's attention the most:
"Pronoun bracelet…" They said.
_I could use one of those. _
"So, how do we go about it?" Jarek asked.
"I suppose we should find Heart's stay here before anything, we need to blend in!" Janitor-guy made a good point!
"But we can't use the new one. Look for one of the hotels made by the original Heart operations system! It shouldn't be looked at by anyone!"
"Why not the new one?"
Jarek responded, "If we go to the houses, it'll alert Heart because we technically have to check in with everyone and keep track of our progress. The hotels didn't have that, just the clothes printer, and file searchers."
"Which means we have to do this there," Kai sighed. "So no really nice showers, but great beds on the other hand!"
"Right…"
"And after we're done settling in," Jarek continued, "we'll have to investigate the town, see if our files are correct thus far."
"And, while you do that…" Kai grinned at both men. Jarek sighed in annoyance. "I guess I just got me a date with, beautiful Harry!"
"Don't scare her off!" Jarek said. "We actually *need* her?!"
"Yeah, yeah," Kai smirked at the hologram. "I'll be nice!"
Janitor-guy giggled.