The next timesomeone warned me an acid self-replicated, I would be more prepared for the reality of the situation. Within five minutes, the light coating on the non-organic materials the caustic fluid hadn’t eaten through yet had tripled in volume and spread out over the steel table. Given time, I expected the fluid would eat through the table. The victim’s credit cards already showed signs of deteriorating, although I hadn’t realized some caustic fluids existed capable of breaking down even plastic.
“Remind me to do research into caustic fluids, Alec.” I held up a deteriorating credit card, which was intact sufficiently to pull off the important details, including the card number, expiration date, and security code. While I handled the evidence, he took photos of everything. “It’s even eating through the plastic of these credit cards. Maybe we have to use glass to store it? Nobody warned me becoming a detective involved a solid knowledge of chemistry.”
“Is this practical chemistry?” Alec asked with a frown. “I took more math than science in school, and I can’t remember if chemistry was the acid test section of my education. It went by in a blur, honestly.”
“I’m fairly sure this is chemistry,” I replied, grateful the CDC had provided fancy gloves capable of withstanding the hell fluid dripping off the credit card. “I am noticing a trend, though.”
“That everything here is somehow financially related or identity related?” Alec pointed at the pile we’d already dealt with, which ranged from the soggy pulped mess of life-insurance papers; we’d dealt with that first, and we’d managed to get the policy numbers off as many of the sheets as possible, along with some names. That information would turn into warrants for the original copies. “Insurance, taxes, credit—it’s all here. And covered with this slime.”
The slime did remind me of the hagfish incident, with a goopy consistency and a tendency to stick to everything. “I’m getting the Blob vibe out of this, truth be told.”
“I hope you won’t think less of me for saying this, but I want to go home now.”
I laughed, as I wouldn’t mind heading home, especially now that I knew he lived in the same building I did. “Thanks to a bunch of incubi showing up in an effort to seduce me, I’m the proud owner of a bunch of board games. When I refused to take off my clothes but their boss said they had to spend time trying, we came to a suitable alternative: we play board games during breaks. As the inconvenienced party, I get to keep the board games.” I narrowed my eyes. “I also just realized my apartment is large enough to host gaming parties, and I’m thinking I need to have gaming sessions over the weekends. I may not be accepting the advances of incubi, but there is no reason I can’t invite them over for gaming.” My eyes widened. “Well, shit. I’ve been trained to have fun by my bosses. But then they make me do shit like play with dangerous acids while on the job.”
“There are no shortcuts we can take on this, are there?” Alec continued to take photographs of everything I handled from every angle, and every now and then, he made use of our digital tablet to make a notation about something we wanted to remember that wasn’t immortalized in image format. “Is this what you do daily?”
“Fortunately, no. I mean, there is a significant amount of tedium, but I usually don’t have to wear a partial hazmat while handling evidence. Usually, I have to deal with blood or other bodily fluids, especially if I’m being sent to a homicide scene. The chiefs don’t tend to send me out on the rape cases. I have earned a reputation.”
“What sort of reputation?”
“I will work myself to death on a rape case, even though the odds of getting a successful prosecution are low. My success rate for a prosecution is pretty good, but they only put me on the cases they think we have a decent chance of winning. Otherwise, I overwork on them.”
“I’m confused. Isn’t it a good thing to work hard?”
“No, working to death is never a good thing. Working hard in a sensible fashion is a good thing, but I am not sensible on those cases. I’m usually assigned theft or homicide cases, as I work hard without working myself to death. We’ll have to test your tendencies, too. That’s a thing here. The chiefs want to put people where they shine, but they need to shine in a healthy fashion. I get too involved with the rape cases, so it’s not as good of a fit as you might think.”
“You may as well classify me as the same way,” Alec stated.
Interesting. “I’ll tell the chiefs. If you’re like me, we’d be powerhouse detectives on the rape cases with good odds of securing a prosecution. But we have to be perfect on our end to get them. Most rapists walk.”
“That disgusts me.”
I understood, and I appreciated we stood on the same ground on the subject. I’d seen detective pairs split up due to differences of opinion in how cases should be approached before, although the chiefs took care to handle those situations with grace for all parties involved. “It disgusts me, too. Also, when we are tasked with domestic violence cases where the woman is the perp, we need to take extra care with the victims; men often withhold the reality of the situation because society has declared, foolishly, that men shouldn’t be the victims of rape. They are. They’re just far less likely to tell someone they’re a victim, so prosecuting their rapist is that much harder.”
We processed five more credit cards before I blinked, went to the pile we’d already checked, and began counting cards, confirming each one was unique. “Make a notation that this is an abnormal number of credit cards, Alec.”
“Oh, I already did that. I noticed the high number of cards after we hit card number ten. Most people only have an average of four cards.”
I had one card, and I obsessively paid it off on a weekly basis, terrified it would grow teeth and bite me. “I guess my one card is unusual?”
“It’s smart. It gives you access to a credit card without giving you too many routes to enter debt. I wouldn’t have any credit cards, except they’re convenient for paying the bills and some stores, especially online.” Alec shrugged. “One seems smart and sane to me.”
“Can you tell if these are real credit cards or if they’re prepaid?”
“There are names on the card, so they’re not prepaid cards. These are real credit cards. Now, they might besecuredcards, but that is a different kettle of fish from a prepaid card. I can’t tell if the card is joint with someone unless we get access to the financials, however.”
I nodded, and as my curiosity threatened to take over, I sorted through the remaining items, separating the cards into various piles. Ten credit cards went into an expired pile. Twenty-seven went into the active pile. He had a passport, a passport card, a driver’s license, an insurance card, and four library cards. The library cards puzzled me, as he had one for the New York Public Library system, one for in Delaware, one for a county system in Maryland, and one for Chicago. “Make a note to look into the legalities for library cards in places you don’t have residency, Alec.”
“Noted,” he reported after fiddling with the tablet.
In the box of personal items, which included the soggy ruins of three pairs of shoes, a mess of deteriorated clothing, and a bunch of knick-knacks, I located a wooden box showing zero signs the caustic fluid bothered it. “Hello. What do we have here?” Setting the box on the table, I cleared away space so we could photograph it and make notes. Like everything else, it secreted the slimy substance, although it seemed impervious to harm.
Alec pointed at something engraved on the top of the surface. “That’s a practitioner working.”
I blinked, squinted, and sure enough, several symbols were etched into the wood. At first glance, I’d missed them, as they bore resemblance to the box’s natural grain. “Excellent eye, Alec. How much practitioner magic do you know?”
“Not enough to identify what that does,” he admitted.
