“What, the, fuck!?” Captain Ko could be heard the mome out of his car.

  “Hi Captain.” Marcus had no choice but to greet his captain with a smile: “How are you doing? How’s the family?”

  “My wife’s nagging my fug ears off, thanks for asking.” Captain Ko threw his cigarette butt on the ground and crushed it with his right foot: “What are we looking at here?”

  “We ted at least sixty bodies, there’s definitely more.” Dr. Flemmings came over wiping sweat from her forehead: “The number’s sixty because that’s how many skulls we found. But by the number of rib cages and leg bohere’s gotta be plenty more.”

  “Cai, you found this site right? How the fuck did you even find this?” Captain Ko shook his head and stepped into the ring of police tapes: “And, just to firm, you haven’t told anyone about this, have you?”

  “No, absolutely not sir.” Marcus immediately shook his head.

  “Alright.” Captain Ko walked to a pile of bones pced on a pstic tarp with some skulls ly arranged into three rows on the side: “This sucks. We don’t have the resources or the mao iigate something of this scale.”

  “So, we’ve gotta ask the city for help?” Marcus sighed: “’t say that I am surprised, sir.”

  “Captain, if you don’t mind, I call my captain and ask him to lend you some men. No promises, but I think they have some people and resources to spare.” Dr. Flemmings nodded: “Something of this scale - it’s gotta be very serious. But I just ’t for the life of me think of any case that would fit into this. Something horrible must have happened.”

  “This is Poison City, it wouldn’t be the first time something terrible happened right under people’s noses.” Kevin walked over slowly, with a skull in his hands and slowly putting it oarp: “Sorry Captain, but - ”

  “Yeah, yeah. ” Captain Ko waved his hand: “I know more than you think and I am not oo deny that.”

  “But do you happen to know something about this, Captain?” Dr. Flemmings asked.

  “... I’ll o recheck everything.” Captain Ko thought for a moment then shook his head: “More than sixty dead, something tells me this is not as malicious as you might be thinking. What’s your estimation on the age of the bones again? Thirty years? Thirty years ago the city’s pnning was all but a huge mess. I wouldn’t be surprised if this used to be a massive graveyard.”

  “It’s possible. But that likelihood is not very high.” Kevin shrugged: “The civil pnning was a mess, but this pce was quite far away from the mountains and the old ruins in the east, so I wouldn’t say people would just start burying their dead here.”

  “And the burial is - well, very iing as well.” Dr. Flemmings nodded: “From the roots we tell all of these bodies were buried under some kind of vegetation, but as you tell, there are not many trees here.”

  “Which means that at least for the people who built this house and the houses around the area, they had no idea there were burials here.” Marodded: “If we assume that they were not so greedy as to btantly ighis factor.”

  “And - is that a valid assumption?” Dr. Flemmings looked at Marcus and asked.

  “This is the South-Eastern District, so I doubt anyone would be so brazen.” Captain Ko sighed: “Of course, this is only the theory. We should check with the builders of all the houses arouo firm.”

  “When do we expect to hear from the city?” Kevin asked.

  “I don’t know, to be ho with all of you.” Captain Ko rubbed his temples then took another look at the skulls being pced oarp: “It’s getting to ele season iy, pyers iy cil have their energy and their funds focused elsewhere. But, Cai, since you called this in, you are in charge of this for now, use whatever resources you deem necessary. I know you have a ton on your pte, but do enough groundwork so that whey sends their men on this. And - use your best judgment on which cases to prioritize. Let me know if you need help.”

  “And sidering it’s almost the anniversary. I doubt they’ll have time to dig into this anytime soon.” Kevin shrugged.

  Everyo silent, including Captain Ko. Marcus kly what Kevin was referring to: the 15th anniversary of the cruise ship act on Lake Aqiu. A sensitive subject t up, obviously, but possibly relevant.

  “I’m afraid you’re right, Kevin. But still - ” Captain Ko let out a long sigh: “What you do?”

  “Sir? ” Just this moment, an officer called out to Captain Ko: “We just found something.”

  Marcus followed Captain Ko and the officer to the biggest sinkhole. There was another officer w inside, and with his fshlight pointing at a particur er, Marcus was able to see what caught their attention: it was some kind of stoablet. It was smooth and shaped somewhat like a piece of tombstone, with some almost unintelligible symbols carved on its surface.

  “Tombstone?” Dr. Flemmings asked.

  “Too small.” Kevin shook his head: “Looks like something else - like a pque, or - ”

  “Or some kind of inscribed record.” Marcus scratched his jaw: “I don’t know, this is all a little - ”

  “Culty?” Dr. Flemmings sighed the scoffed.

  “I was going with paranormal, but yeah culty could work.” Marodded and exged looks with Kevin: “What’s it say there? Any?”

  “Some kind of a nguage, looks a bit like Lumeragraph. ” Dr. Flemmings shrugged: “If it is, then only a few people iy could actually read it.”

  “Lumeragraph, nobody’s spoken it for at least a few hundred years right? And how we get access to them?” Captain Ko took a quick picture of the tablet with his phone: “Anyone from the uy?”

  “Yeah, I will give you a list.” Dr. Flemmings sighed and shook her head: “But, since all your officers seem to have everything handled, I o head back. I have a meeting iy ihan three hours. I’ll send my notes over soon.”

  “Thank you, Doctor.” Marcus and Captain Ko both bowed gently toward the doctor.

  “Thank you, Dr. Flemmings, before you go, I have something I would like your professional opinion on.” Kevin walked over with another piece of bone in his hand, quite different from the others, this piece was dark aransparent, not uhe amberized roots growing on the bones.

  “This is - a shin bone?” Dr. Flemmings was immediately intrigued: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen bones like this. I think we o send this over to a b iy to see what could have happened.”

  It took almost two hours before all the officers on site mao plete the preliminary processing of the se. Marcus and Kevin headed back after the first hour, for they had already been onsite since before and they would o run some tests on some of the evidence collected.

  “Hey, Shrevas, Keryn, how’s it going?” When they got back to the prect, they found both Detective Pahaik aive Lance were waiting by the door to the forensics b.

  “What happened?” Detective Pahaik seemed to have aged a few years, his eyes were red, the stress and ay of the reparations team case seemed to have weighed on him quite heavily. Detective Lance did not seem much better - she had bags under her eyes, her hair was untrimmed and she seemed even more silent and unwilling to talk today.

  “Marcus found something, it’s like a hidden mass grave of some sort.” Kevin shook his head: “But don’t worry, your stuff’s still fine, we should hear back from the city bs anytime today.”

  “Mass grave?” This news raised the eyebrows of both Shrevas and Keryn: “What the hell? How did you even find that?”

  “I - well, just my damn luck I guess.” Marcus shrugged.

  “Yeah, I suspect it’ll hit the news very soon.” Kevihe two exhausted detectives into the b and his offid turned on his puter and started cheg the request he filed on behalf of Detectives Pahaik and Lance.

  “Pending” the blue letters made the veins on Shrevas’ forehead jumped and throbbed: “What the fuck? I thought it’s gonna be ready by today?”

  “Let me check. Usually it wouldn’t take this long.” Kevin frowned and clicked into the i on s.

  “Due to high demand for resources from the Poison City forensics b, this analysis report is running te. Please check back ter for further status updates.” Marcus read the expnation out loud.

  Both Shrevas and Keryn grunted, Shrevas started pag in the b, and Keryn sat oable on the side, staring at Kevin’s s: “Kevin, anyway to rush this for us?”

  “Will try again. But no promises.” Kevin rubbed his temples: “Suys.”

  “Anything we do here? It’s just some fingerprints and DNA samples, fod’s sake.” Shrevas asked.

  “Yeah yeah yeah. Thanks for reminding me, I actually borrowed some time from the city’s fingerprint matcher.” Kevin smacked himself on the forehead and said: “This is ahanks to Mick. Marcus, you might wanna take a look at this as well.”

  Kevin pulled up aab on his browser, which had a few clickable items listed. He then proceeded to cli a few of them, all of which showed “no match”, which caused Shrevas to grunt again. And finally, there was oem that showed “match”, with a picture of a blood stained cloth. Marcus reized this - it was the same fabric of Carl Benson’s shirt, clutched in the hand of Lydia Mu.

  “Matched: Lydia Mu.”