“Individual choice is the driving force of history. No movement, philosophy, or law can ever replace the individual as the fulcrum point of change.”
~ excerpt from Thoughts on History by Levin Duprey
Tuesday December 3, 2069
Florida District 8
Commonwealth of North America
Iteration 2
“Clemens!”
Ivy skidded to a halt two feet from the front door of the precinct. She’d worked a twelve-hour shift, and the ice-cream truck was pulling away. If this was a mutt run to chase missing mugs from the break room, she would . . . well . . . she’d suck it up and do her job because she had no choice. But she’d be thinking about physical violence the whole time.
The ice-cream truck pulled away, playing Evinna Madier’s hit single “Summertime Beach Waves,” and with it went her orange creamsicle push pop. The highlight of her day for $3.75. She’d have to run two blocks to catch it.
With a sigh, she turned around. “Yes?”
“I got something for you,” said Tom Wall, the overnight officer in charge. “Just came in.”
Her shoulders slumped. “Missing dog? Lost skateboard? What is it?”
The older man smiled sympathetically. Wall was one of the few decent people on the force. It was going to suck manatee balls when he moved to Boca in two weeks.
“This is good, promise. There’s a murder case from up north. The ME sent the autopsy over and asked if you’d look it over.” He held out a datpad.
Ivy’s eyes went wide. “Really?” No one had ever asked for her help on a major case. She’d tagged along, even managed to help once or twice, but this was unprecedented.
“I skimmed it, and then double-checked the send code. It came from the CBI ME’s office.” He raised an eyebrow. “What’d you get up to when you went to that exchange conference?”
She shook her head. “Nothing. I just asked a few questions about a Jane Doe they had. It wasn’t a big case.” But maybe Runiker had sent it out of sympathy. If Jane was a clone, no one else was going to care about who killed her.
Wall looked at her. “You sure that was it?”
“Yes!” She paused. His tone was all wrong. “Why?”
“There’s multiple case files in there–including one from Alabama, where a teacher was found dead in her kitchen. The CBI is putting together a serial killer case up there.”
She stared at the datpad. “Really?” This was the biggest case she’d ever worked on. Ever even been asked to think about. This was so much better than stolen cars with disabled trackers!
“Cool your chill, Clemens. You get to look at the file, that’s all. Chief isn’t going to let you go up north to actually work on it.”
“Of course.” She tried not to sound disappointed. “Still . . .”
“Still, it’s a step forward,” Wall agreed. “Sorry I made you miss your ice cream.”
“It’s okay.” She flashed him a smile. “Have a good evening, sir.”
“Stay out of trouble, Clemens,” he said with a wave as he headed back to the bullpen.
“Yes, sir.”
She walked to her car in the fading evening twilight, only half seeing the world around her. Ocean breezes and museum-worthy sunsets happened 350 days out of every 365.
Serial killers were rare.
Her car was a late-model Firebright Racer that the city had taken in a drug bust, bright orange with a dented door panel and the backseat stripped out. It was ugly and didn’t drive great, but it was all she had. There was a chance it might even transfer in January to become her official property. Until then, she drove it like an old lady creeping toward church on a Sunday morning because the supply officer would charge her for every scratch. Come January, when she could run her own bank account instead of having it go straight to a caseworker, and have 95 percent docked for expenses, she was going to save. In a few years, things were going to be different.
Once she reached the studio efficiency apartment, she raced upstairs. There was leftover oatmeal in the fridge for dinner, but what she really wanted were her binders.
When she’d first started working for the department, they’d cleaned out old cases, and she’d wound up liberating a few case binders in her first act of rebellion against her oppressors. Even if their oppression was limited to treating her like a thing to be bought or sold and didn’t actually involve whips, chains, or genuine oppression. But that wasn’t the point.
The point was she had nearly seventy years’ worth of case files that would help her find patterns the CBI might miss.
It probably wouldn’t break the case. And she doubted they’d listen to her if she found anything, but she could try.
Laying the cases on the floor in a rainbow around her, she leaned against the metal frame of her bed and turned on the datpad. The very first note was a scrawl reading, “Where were the crimes committed? Find the crime scene. LM”
She started reading the files, hunting for the crime scene and answers for the CBI.