Sunset Vertigo: A Tale of Petrina City

Claire looked out at the desolate body of water. She liked the sunrise and varied colors of sky hanging out the water in the vast distance. A shroud of mist covered the other side of the world. She liked it out here, away from the city that swallowed people whole. She was alone now, where anything could happen but never did. Petrina City would soon become the far off world that may never have existed.
"Claire Mulligan?" came a grated voice.
She whipped around, feeling her privacy violated. The old man was shriveled like a paper bag, puffing on a corncob pipe. He seemed harmless enough, looking like a water damaged woold carving of a child in an over-sized pea-coat.
Course you are, I been watchin' you a long time."
She balked, stepping into the chilled water. Shots of invisible switchblade ice stabbed at her legs and ran up her spine.
"Don't  be afraid sweetheart... it was only inevitable. Consider this one of those full circle types of things, where karma don't exactly take any holidays."
"Have I.... have, I wronged you mister? I'm only out to make amends"
The old man sighed. He took a long puff off his pipe, exhaling smoke akin to a roasted battlefield dancing over a spastic display of corpses.
"Being alone is hell enough."
The old man sighed again "No, it really isn't. 'Specially, when you got a whole slew of people involved."
Almost as an assurance, the old man pocketed his pipe and reached a trembling hand into his moth eaten coat.
Claire emulated the hand with her ragged figure, shuddering  and barely able to stand, clutching a chunk of rotted tree on an abandoned work bench.
"What do I, need to do?" It was a plead for  her world torn asunder.
"How many people have to die? I left everything behind. Everyone believed Claire Mulligan was lost in the fire and they were happy... but someone just wouldn't let go, would they?"
The sunrise was supposed to be a time of rejuvenation for Claire. Today, she experienced the vertigo felt at sunset. The end of day signified curses of shadows and pain. Her mind unwinding a horrific tapestry of misery until darkness lightly flew toward her and stroked her cheek bones in delicate grace.
The touch aroused her senses back to the present. She was now miles away from the calm she felt in nature.
The grim old man had thrown a velvet black glove down at her feet.
There was the eerie quietness in the moment. Any sensations that could have been felt, went numb. This was the ultimate reckoning.
Claire gulped, wide eyed yet still standing tall. She awaited her judgement
The old man gritted his teeth and spat. There was a tired desperation about him. He stared at both of his gnarled hands. They had been mangled in sickening ways over the decades walked.
"I've done a lot and had a lot done to me. Don't  want to waste time anymore, doing what I do and pitying ,what I could've done" The old man raised his head.
He looked tenderly upon Claire "You shouldn't either, but... ques es lavida. It means, 'what is life?' The only lick of Mexican, I know. That's right, Mexican, not Spanish. You understand? This is the way of the world. The will of forces, we can't suppress."
Claire nodded. She knelt down to pick up the black glove. She caressed and softly smiled.
The old man gnashed his teeth and barked "Now, where is it?"
Claire reached inside her and revealed a pearl bracelet.
"Put them on." He growled.
Claire removed her coat. She slowly slipped the glove on her right hand and clasped the bracelet on her wrist. She stood artificially seductive,displaying the hand without expression or movement.
The old man nodded approvingly. His eyes ran up and down her form. A malicious smile further creased his weather beaten features, as he shamelessly licked his lips.
"I'd order you to strip, and you would... wouldn't you, whore? Instincts never die." He crept closer to Claire.
Claire saw that she and I the old man had the same shade of blue of eyes. Her expression softened.
The old man knew what meant and nervously fiddled in his pocket.
"I have two choices." He lamented, holding a pistol in one hand and his pipe in the other.
"I can shoot first, and then take a smoke, or I can smoke... while you shoot yourself."
Claire slyly smile "No, old man... there is another option without letting me go."
The old man return gesture with a grin and respectfully nodded.
"Sometimes a Hell is of your own choosing and not where people want you to be." He chomped down on his tooth marked pipe.
"Hell is being unable to choose. Maybe, both of us should have realized this long ago." Claire said.
"Young lady, after I leave these woods... it's only me and me. You, however can take as many chances as you need."
The old man mechanically opened the gun's chamber: emptying it out except for one bullet, spinning, snapping and shutting it, in a blur. He ran the gun down Claire's neckline and fondled her breasts with the barrel; he noticed scars and put the gun in her hand.
"Who were you?" She asked.
"A man like any other, only more so... I fell, but never hid my didn't how to or what to do. Who are you, girl?"
She brushed the unloved man's face "Black glove and pearl bracelet."
The old man snickered to stifle a sob. He looked more the child than ever, kicking a pebble in which a ladybug clung upon.
"Be seeing you, on the other side of eternity." He lit his pipe and casually strolled off.
"Isn't that the way, everyone's history ends?" Claire whispered to herself.
The gun felt like a feather. The glove and bracelet weighed as heavy as armored car in a not so distant past: filled with conjured promises and a toxic mirror romance in an imaginary shack in the Garden of Eden and that ended on a dirty patch of street, where her father once laid twitching and bleeding.
She remembered, how his eyes darted "why?'
That was the first time her world, would tilt and spin.
Claire opened the chamber. She spun and closed the chamber , several times but not as fast as the old man.
The day had begun to wane.
Soon would be the sunset and then the vertigo.

Man Against Time: CM -EP 4

 It can't rain all the time, but it does... it rains blood, blood that needs to be shed or blood needing to be avenged. My name's Milo Denton. I'm a disgraced cop turned an even more disgraced P.I. and I'm wearing someone else's face. My job is supposed to consist of investigating: cheating spouses and crooked business with made up problems. Truth of the matter is, I'm not much of a detective, for me detective work is made up of bribery and beatings to get the info you need or get someone to manufacture what needs to be done or said. Sometimes there are people who aren't totally agreement with the way things tend to get done.
That's when I talk hard, sometimes harder.
I tighten the bandages on my face, as I don't want to risk going out looking like some snitch who snitched out the wrong person and now has a hit on him. I put on the dark blue suit, my best suit I've always wanted to die in; I put it together with a linen white shirt and cheap polyester grey and black striped necktie because that's what I want to wear on this hard-boiled night to say my long hard goodbye in.
I take one gun. My police issued firearm. It has memories because it's not mine, mine got stolen from some crook who went around committing various armed robberies, this I took from another guy while on a wild FG-5 binge. I remember fighting the perp a mud-hole and as we struggled nobody dared to fire a shot because nobody could tell who was who.
Still don't remember the outcome of that night or what was done to shelter the events.
I leave my father's watch.
I think of the cracked face and the cracked mirror in the bathroom and what was reflected underneath my coverings. I don't think about the dead guys in the office. I won't be coming back.
I've got a new face. I don't know what it means or who did it but once I find out, I definitely plan on not being me anymore.
I put on my gray trench coat and before I do, I check the pockets and find a small silver egg-shaped thing. It's unblemished. This is FG-G in its most concentrated form. Inside is a blue glowing liquid that turns into a faded pink smoke as it hits the air and to place it underneath your nostrils at that the moment gives you the  most paradise enhancement of reality you'll need.
I crack the seal. Do what's right. Getting high on FG-5 before going out into the night.
 A man against time.
On the way to suicide.
My pores are on fire, feeling the shock of the atmosphere parting ways for  razor-blade structure. I smell strawberry fields. Walking down  Penny Lane toward the Blue Angel Bar.
I'm not a horror-show  mummy in some dorky suit and tie. I'm a stone-age brute on a quest for fire.
The temperature drops. My chest is still heaving  like a blast furnace but the drops of rain that look like liquid prisms become shards of crystal.
It's a freezing rain.
Got a volcano inside my heart  pumping lava in my veins to prevent my blood from going arctic.
A neon blue angel looks down upon me and winks with golden lashes. She can't get back up to heaven caught in the wire of sculpture holding her form, so she curses us down all below in hopes we poison ourselves enough thanks to her allure, in the desperation that the lord of the damned will consider her captivity long enough and let her go where she may not be welcomed anymore.
Time's running out... for all of us.
I walk in, the doorman can't even look at me. He turns away and lights a cigarette knowing who I am even without a trace of what used to be my face.
There are bruisers, pimps, addicts, and femme fatales who suddenly separate themselves from an orgy of carnal and destructive intent. They know but pretend not to know. All of a sudden their drinks or bottom of the glass or even the game on the set is more interesting  than what was going on in the nasty spiderweb they were all weaving together before I entered the room.
I don't put my exterminator bag on the table but I sit down at the center of the bar. The waitresses retreat. Sam the man of granite with the off-center nose, who forever cannot taste the flavor of his favorite candy bar asks "What's the good word, Milo?"
"Not in jail. Yourself?"
"Pouring drinks for boozers, whores and dirtbags. Speaking of..." he takes down a bottle of Irish whiskey and raises an eyebrow, a glass already in the other hand wanting a pour.
A piano plays softly. Ivory tickles copper wire. The player, besides Sam is the only one who makes eye contact with me.
 He smiles at me and nods, like he knows everything. He's wearing a cream suit with a white shirt and red scarf. His skin is like the color of salmon. His hair so blonde, it's almost white. Can't tell the color of his eyes from the smoke in the room. There's an intense feeling between us.
He's no fairy. I can tell. He's good with the world but in a shameful way. I'm comfortably in a nervous manner.
I point at the glass and nod approvingly to Sam "What's with the fairy?"
Sam snorts and grimaces a broken smile "He's owns the place. Owned it for quite sometime."
"Awfully, young isn't he?" I take a swig and point at the air in my glass.
Everyone goes back to business. Taking no notice of us, like we're in a vacuum. Silence all around us and at a great distant from the rest of bar. All I can hear is Sam, myself and the piano playing something from another time and place I never heard of. It's a sad melody but sounds like there used to be a hint of joy to it thousands of years ago.
"He's a bit older than any of us realize. Someone, told me... mind you this was a superstitious individual but not of a cowardly lot..." he smirks then continues "that the owner here was the Devil himself, exiled from his own inferno by the good lord for not being wicked enough. For offering a chance at redemption."
A moment passes.
The man at the piano waves. I get a cold and unusual feeling of vertigo.
"Pour me another."
Sam hesitates and as he fills the glass to the brim "Or it could all be the talk of drink mixed with desperation of loneliness."
I can feel the owner at his piano absently shrug.
I slowly sip as Sam stands over me, looking at the others in the hopes that they beg for his attention.
I push the glass aside.
"Sam, I want my fortune told."
He looks off to the side with his head down and eyes closed. "Milo..."
"Sam, I feel time slipping away. Don't f---around."
There are two doors. The one to the right leads to the kitchen, the other is a red beaded doorway.
The lady or the tiger.
I want the lady who rides the tiger.

The Blue Angel Departure: CM-EP 3

It’s not death , if you accept it and the other side of eternity nowhere near you expect it to be… right here! Sometimes though, you're not even in your body and time out of mind is only way to describe what happens when FG-5 fever hits. 

Everything happens in a crimson blur and razor blade slashes of obsidian. The only thing that matters are the frozen moments in time preventing you from experiencing the here and now. 

My name is Milo Denton, I tried to kill myself after being disfigured, only to realize the face in the mirror didn't belong to me and now someone is sent Smiley Face kids to kill me and an FG-5 fever has hit and a landslide of ultra-violence and horrific family movies is going to bombard my pulsating brain. 

I have been outside myself realizing, my mind cannot prevent nor momentarily block the withdrawal from FG-5 anymore.

Streak of silver wind across my chest, severed tie, force  my knee into something plastic and the gorilla goes down with a slimy piece of meat shoved out of place.

The room goes crooked. Television set on the desk stretches out into an obelisk with the screen sporting the figure with a goblin nose and fangs hanging over the blonde virgin innocence...No. No. Not that movie. Not that image.

Cut to: Movie Theater. There were velvet chocolate chairs. (so I remember). Something hot and wet started happening, as the gaunt ivory hands stroked the neck of damsel in all her purity in deep slumber. I wanted to go to the movies. Mother held my hand, wearing fake pearls. Dad didn't care just did his duty watching but vacant without a soul. 

Mother "Really the pearls, Milo? They should be saved for special nights."

Milo (stupid seven year old me) "Couldn't be going to the movies be a special night?"

She kisses me tenderly on the forehead "Alright, for you. Tonight, we'll make it a special night."

The clicking of the projector sets a tense tempo for unknown motive swelling in the loins.

THE MONKEY LAUGHS AND PULLS DOWN THE MAN IN THE BANDAGED FACE.

The little boy's face is flushed. Father is distracted watching the teenage girl, ignore the teenage boy with the pizza face staring for a kiss and Mother's eyes widen at the seductive giant sized horror played about on the screen. The little boy grips harder as the vampire hunches over the girl. He wonders what it's like to be a painted soft-machine being touched by a supernatural being or to be the supernatural being doing the touching of the painted soft-machine. 

TWO FISTS SMACK THE MASK OVER AND OVER, UNTIL SOMETHING SLIDES BETWEEN THE RIBS OF THE BANDAGED MAN.

Harder. The wetness is rising. Over and over enter the pocket, pulling down the zipper as fangs drip spittle and begin puncturing the soft-machine's shell of silk. Her eyes flash open! The creatures eyes widen!

SWITCHBLADE EQUALS SLASHING RED RIBBONS ACROSS THE VISION. FISTS FROM ABOVE GENERATE BLACK-HOLES. THE ROOM BECOMES A MELTING REALM OF SWISS CHEESE DRAPED OVER BY A SHARDS BLOODY RIBBON ALL SEEN THROUGH SOMEONE'S BLUE EYE THROWN INTO AN OUT SPACE OF BURNING STARS.

The little boy doesn't care about any of that. He knows that could be his eye but instead watches the  movie gripping his mother's firmer, in an effort to feel what is going in front of him with the other hand working something he doesn't quite understand quite yet but something is about to erupt and as the vampire grins miniature red eyes erupts and something unholy ejects from the boy. 

Shame. Joy. Lust. Relief. 

She looks around straightening her blonde hair. It's not wavy like the girl on the screen. The wetness disgusts her. 

Mother "Milo! How dare you?!"

He's torn from his seat and his father barely follows, feeling quite like the shadow of two people he rather not know. 

Then the voice of crushed glass set amid sizzling smoke spoke "Nice pearls."

Piano wire wrapped around her neck. 

Father hands in pocket, slouching with hands in pocket. "Hey, don't do that." he quietly protested.

Little Milo screaming and jumping. Father slugs him across the face without a sound. Metal clinks. Thunder and lightning father falls giving Milo a final rueful look signifying an ultimate fall from grace.

Boy is cold and wet in a place that doesn't feel right. Mother's leg spread in a van more than one shadow hunched over her. A door slides closed as rubber peels against wet street. 

He never saw the man fully nor the face but something wasn't quite right with the jagged grin.

I AM MILO DENTON THE BOY WHO BECAME THE MAN. THE MAN AGAINST TIME WHO BURIED THE BOY SITTING AGAINST THE LAMP POST IN A TIN BOX CHAINED ACROSS THE HEART UNTIL THE POLICE COULD GET THERE AND NOT REALLY LISTEN BUT SHUFFLE HIM ACROSS GUARDIAN TO GUARDIAN UNTIL DEAR BONNIE COULD FINALLY GET CUSTODY, WHORING HERSELF OUT TO GET MONEY TO BRIBE THE RIGHT PEOPLE.

SPREAD THE GORILLA'S ARMS LIKE CHRIST ON CONCRETE. BOTH OF THEM BROKEN.

Her curves were like the grooves of a cabbage. Age sixteen. The taste of peaches in sugar and something sour almost corrupt. Milo exploded inside. She held him and caressed auburn hair as he cried "Momma" over and over.

Bonnie "Shhh, baby, it will be alright." then she hummed a lullaby not just for him but for the dead stillborn son and husband dead of exposure on railroad tracks who first drowned himself in a dead sea of gin and gambling in the sport of black market organ theft. 

KNEES INTO THE SPINE. A DEVIL'S TWIST. THE GORILLA GROANS. DON'T CARE WHO SENT WHO. AN OUNCE OR MORE AND HE'S CRIPPLED, ADD ANOTHER TWO AND HE'S DEAD. THE CRYSTAL ANGEL APPEARS, LOWERING HERSELF TO THE GROUND, TRANSPARENT WINGS WRAPPING AROUND WHIRLING RED AND BLACK ROOM. BLUE LIQUID SWISHES INSIDE AND ALL AROUND HER.

BLUE ANGEL "YOU LOOK THIRSTY, MILO. HOW ABOUT A DRINK?"

MILO "THEN MAYBE A VISIT TO THE GYPSY LADY?"

BLUE ANGEL "WHATEVER YOU NEED. JUST FINISH THIS FIRST... THEN PAY ME A VISIT."

IT'S MOURNFUL SMILE AND EVERYTHING REVERTS TO NORMAL EXCEPT THE HAZE...

Grown-up Milo approaches Little Milo. Little Milo looks up.

Grown-up Milo "No one will ever love you." The gun goes off.

Grown-up Milo enters the bedroom with Teenage Milo wiping away something that is cross between joy and shame. A pure dirty feeling. Teenage Milo looks up with a nervous grin in all his moist naked glory.

Grown-up Milo " It's sick what we do for lack of love, isn't it?" The gun goes off. 

Grown-up Milo in the land of fog and darkness,  a full length mirror in front of him. The reflection isn't quite the reflection he thought it to be... Bandaged Milo reaches out and strangles him.

Bandaged Milo "Here's a glimpse of the future, now the lights going out." Two fingers enter the eye sockets.

THE APE SCREAMS. FALSE PRIMATE FACE THROWN ACROSS THE ROOM. 

Images of Milo killing Milo killing Milo fading as everything returns in a technicolor swirl amid white noise.

No one, I recognize. Find my stash of FG-5, take a hit and go down to the Blue Angel Bar and see that gypsy lady. 

Maybe find out everything that's happening in the deciphering of a devil's riddle.

Operation: Power Grab (DG - Ep. 4)

"On top of the misses" Bruce begins laughing, "talking about kickin' me to the curb last night, now I gotta…" The chief loses his focus and gives Bruce a fierce glance, who is standing against one of the windows of the chief's office. "What's so funny, Bruce?" he says sternly.

Normally Simon would have at least been grinning at the joke the chief inadvertently made, but on this morning he was especially somber and concerned about losing his job, or at least receiving a serious demotion. Had the killer he was following struck at the heart of his professional life, now, as well, by practically framing him? Whoever it was was deliberately trying to frustrate the already frustrated one-eyed detective. 

The two detectives glance at each one another, pushing the other with their looks to come clean on the childish joke and move on. Bruce chimes in first, realizing he's on the chopping block.

"Well, Skip…It's just… you said… 'on top of the misses.'" this time Bruce is not even smiling as the phrase enters his head again. The chief looks at him disapprovingly.

"Let's move on, children." the chief straightens up and crosses his arms. "Last night I had to deal with that shit at home and now, this morning, I get this call, putting Internal Affairs directly on my ass wondering first, why two of my top guys left a drugged-out witness's house moments before she was murdered, and second why one of those detectives has a constant target on his back from either a copycat or the original 'scarring killer'. You're too close to all this, Simon." Simon puts his head in his hand, and Bruce straightens up.

"So, here's what we're gonna do, fellas." Simon looks up gravely. "I talked to Internal," the chief turns concerned for the two, "and we came to an agreement. First, is that the two of you cannot work together anymore. As much as it pains me to see my little project fail, you two are sort of a liability individually--for quite a few reasons--but definitely a fucking liability when you're working together."

"Finally!" Bruce lets out a partially-sarcastic gasp.

"Oh what-the-fuck-ever, Bruce!" Simon shouts, "Good riddance… I've put up with your bullshit for so long. you're holding me back." The chief begins looking at both of them fake-patiently, waiting for their childish argument to seise.

"Holding you back?!?! Change that shitty record already, I'm tired of that old disco tune." Simon begins imitating the Bee Gees, making his own melody. "Holding me back!…He's holding me back!" The chief's stare continues, but gradually changes to astonishment at the two for ignoring him and continuing to be fixated on their own petty quarrels.

"A big joke. Everything's a big joke! It's all so fucking hysterical." Simon attempts to imitate Bruce but instead imitate's Connor Rooney from Road To Perdition, and almost loses his edge, but doesn't, clearly having upped his morning dose of FG-5.

"It is pretty funny, though, right, Skip," he looks to the chief for approval, as he attempts to complete his thought, but, upon seeing the boss's face, begins to trail off simultaneously, "that we are both losing really and…"

"Are you two dip-shits ready for number two?" Bruce fights laughter again but becomes stern seeing that the chief got this joke and that his patience, again, is starting to wear very thin.

"The second change is that--despite my greatest efforts to keep the thristy detective from the drug teat--we gotta transfer Simon here to the FG-5 division." Simon's eye narrows, as he looks directly into the chief's.

"You can't be serious chief." Simon says confidently, defiantly, and quietly.

"Right… I mean don't they have, like, some policies about a user of the drug not being about to catch the guys peddling said drug, Skip?"

"It seems their restrictions have become slightly less strict, and they want to use cops addicted to FG-5, like our friend here, to infiltrate larger FG-5 gang rings, as detectives seemingly in other departments simply trying to score the drug--and a little cash--for themselves. Apparently they've had their eyes on Simon here for quite awhile." The chief suddenly looks like he's surprised himself. "Shit, I've said too much with Bruce here already. I'm just so damn excited to get this four year mess you two might call a partnership off my hands."

"Oh, I'm sorry, Skip, you mean you're marriage?" The chief gives him a defiant and violent look.

"Fuck you, Brucie boy! And remember, you still work for me." he walks to Simon and puts his hands on the cyclops's shoulders. "Simon, it was nice to work with you, and you know my door is always open to you. Hopefully, before that time you won't get your damn head blown off, BADDA BING!" he makes the apparent Godfather reference "all over your shitty-detective, cigarette-smelling, FG-5-bullshit suit." he loses his train of thought and releases his grip on Simon. "Now get out of my office both of you, I've got murderers to capture and shit." He points to Simon. "Oh, and Simon?"

"Yeah, chief?"

"Remember what I always told you." Simon nods. "And here." He hands him a thick manilla envelope with the words "Operation: Power Grab" written on it in permanent marker.

Strange Reflections: Cracked Mirror (EP 2)

“Not my face.”

Grab the bottle. Take a swig.

Steady the nerves.

Slowly put bandages back on face.

“Am I really who I am?” Milo’s mind is set ablaze. Whiskey burns down his throat; liquid fire coursing everywhere else, who the hell is the man underneath the series of the wrappings?  The greatest joke ever played the dis-figuration of a disgrace that is in fact not a dis-figuration but a physical reconfiguration capable shattering the mind but it can’t shatter something that wasn't entirely there in the first place.

Milo Denton feels sick in a good way… or is it good in a sick way?  Goodbye to the old life? Hello to something new? Paying for the hell of vintage wrath in a never-ending cycle of torment contained in a flaming bullet-train, full of screaming retarded children and blaring horrific electronic dance music. Something like breakfast, which is really just phlegm laced with uranium infused tobacco, stomach lining and whiskey hits the immaculate white toilet.

Bonnie keeps the place as clean as one of those old 1950’s sitcom settings. She’s a real mothering type, despite the slight indiscretion years ago it was like a mother and son relationship but Bonnie just wasn't missing her son and Milo wasn't just missing his mother and needed something more than nurture for his carnal nature. She was just as carnal as well but when all was said and done, nothing was ever uttered or hinted at again and both liked it that way and Milo entered high school that year as a man or was it the piano that actually raised him and took him to the glowing celestial skull altar where he knelt to vomit and weep with leather belts lashing at his back?

FG-5 alters perceptions. Creates memories and implants what you don’t want because it is secretly what you want and where you need to be in order to push the boundaries of intellect and body, which is what FG-5 does or what drug allows the user to do. You don’t like the drug but the drug likes you because you are the in itself the drug.

Knock. Knocking at the bathroom door, a gentle rapping, Denton, get the head out of your sickness. Cock the hammer. Don’t wait and pull trigger. Slugs chew through wood and paint in order to devour the meat on the other side.

Never expect company when on the way to suicide.

Kick the door off the hinges, gun points left and right.  Look down. Two men dead, not leaving the world any poorer; young men, yellow smiley-face masks, baseball bats, one sawed off shot to the side, black leather jackets. Smiley-Face Kids, local gang thinks they can create a new reality through building a chaotic empire out of crime while constantly operating on FG-5. 

This is bad. Hell is coming, as if Hell itself wasn't bursting through the payment and not stopping; a portal is opening up and swallowing the lives of everyone on this street and soon the whole damn city.

Don’t overreact. Go see the gypsy woman at the back of Blue Angel.

Boots stomping up the stairs, office door is swings open and there’s a hulking mass built like a mountain pretending to be a man in a gorilla suit. It’s not funny. The gorilla suited maniac grunts, and pulls a samurai sword out of its sheath.

Click. Click. The gun is empty.  Death wears combat boots, a gorilla suit and wields a samurai sword. Milo Denton considers the other side of eternity.

Or Can I Assume it's the FG-5? (DG - Ep. 3)

"And, would you say you've had any enemies, Mrs. Frost? You, your family, your husband?… your daughter?" Bruce lights up a cigarette, as he and his one-eyed partner sit a little too cozily on a small love seat in the living of the Frosts, A suburban type family: Mother's a drug-addict empty-nester housewife and father's a law professor. They live on the prestigious lower-west side of Petrina City, where the dogs are quite small and the egos are (among some other parts of people) are quite large.

"Would you say your daughter ran with any strange sorts of people?" Simon asks, as Mrs. Frost lights up a smoke, no doubt under sedation from FG-5, staring blankly at Bruce, who has yet to say a word, but decides to take over.

"What we are trying to do here, Mrs Frost, is make connections between your recently dea--" Simon bumps Bruce hard, and Bruce clears his throat, "your recently deceased daughter, and whoever would have taken her life." He clears his throat again. "What we are trying to do is" he begins dividing an imaginary pie in front of him, as if showing blank Mrs. Frost presentation, "develop what sorts of motives somebody might have for murdering your daughter." She continues to give Bruce the FG-5 trademarked hopeless stare, he throws his hands up as if giving up, and turns to Simon, both standing suddenly "I can't take this." he says, "I gotta finish my smoke outside. She must have been pretty damn good at losing touch and being frighteningly silent before the drugs… and now she's just…" He makes a motion with in the air of one hand taking off from the other quickly makes "PJJJJWWWIIIIIOOOO" noise with his lips.

 They stand, backs to her, and lower their voices as well as their demeanor, "If she won't give us information that could solve her daughter's homicide, then we're wasting our time here."

"Give me five minutes with her, Brucie. She is one of the closest ones to the victim." Simon lights up a cigarette. "Besides, maybe she'll warm up to me once you leave." He puts his arm around his partners shoulder, somewhat condescendingly, "I don't think she likes you very much. She's giving you the death stare." They both look directly at Mrs. Frost, who is pushing Bruce to leave her house with her eyes.

He gives Mrs. Frost a cold, frosty stare of his own and states matter-of-factly, "Ma'am, you need some serious deliverance," before leaving the house.

Simon sits on the couch again, and Mrs. Frost almost immediately opens up. "I really don't like his types."

"Not many people do," Simon smiles and gets out his pad, ready to jot down Mrs. Frost's words.

"He has an evil way about him."

"Yes, he does, Mrs. Frost." He puts his warm smile away and begins to look more frustrated, before clearing his throat. "Now, can we talk about your daughter, please?"

"Sure." She looks coldly across the room at the Frost's prized family portrait, now lying about its members. 

His mannerisms become more welcoming again. "You don't seem too concerned about your daughter's death, Mrs. Frost, you mind telling me why? Is it a bad relationship thing, or can I assume it's the FG-5?"

"I know you're on it too," she says, pointing at Simon. "Everyone on it seems to be able to pick out whoever else is, so how do I know I can trust your amplified characteristics, Mr. Murphy?"

"It seems you can't." Simon uncomfortably adjusts his tie. "Can we at least rule you out on being the murderer, because she's your daughter, and assume that you would feel remorse if you weren't popping so much amp?" Her eyes begin to well up the slightest bit, which concerns Simon, who knows she will soon need a new pill. "Do you need another pill, Mrs. Frost?"

"No, I'll be fine."

"Are you sure, I have some."

"I only take my own, I mix 'em myself. I just ran out, so I might try to quit." She tries to light another smoke, but cannot because her lips, hands, and eyes are beginning to shake rapidly. "Starting now" she faintly and tiredly whispers.

She begins sweating profusely, and Simon gets off the couch, rushes to the front door side of it, and backs away. "You're not supposed to do that, Mrs. Frost. Either of those: mixing your own or quitting suddenly. You know what the immediate withdrawal can be like, Mrs.--" 

Before he can continue, she snaps her neck from side to side and she begins yelling mostly useless babble at him, with an occasional "you don't know him, he's different," or a, "she was supposed to be our little princess." She starts throwing some of the family's expensive trinkets at Simon, as he throws a pill at her and urges her to take it, without success. Bruce hears the racket and looks in the front door, only to have a chair thrown at him. "Get that lunatic out of my house!" she screams pointing at the door Bruce has already exited again.

Simon quickly eases towards Mrs. Frost to grab his coat off the back of the couch, nabs it and runs out the door yelling, "Thank you for your time!"

On the way to the car, Simon says, "I don't think she's fucked up enough to murder her own daughter."

"Who knows, Simon," He pushes his index and middle finger pressed together onto Simon's chest, "you can't trust the statements either way with an Amp-head." He releases Simon from his gaze, straightens out his coat, begins to smirk, walks towards the car. "I'm surprised I trust you as much as I do."

"Shut the hell up, Bruce," Simon pops another pill quickly, this time washing it down with whiskey from a flask from his inside pocket, "before I decide to kick your ass." They both get into the car. "I need to get home and get some sleep."

-----------

Simon is awoken suddenly from his slumber by his cell phone ringing. "Huuulo?" he answers thinking about going back to sleep and reading 4:55am on his bedside clock.

"This is the chief, Simon."

"Do you sleep at all?"

"not as long as people get murdered."

"What's happening?"

"Mrs. Nancy Frost was found dead late last night."

That's a Good Motto, Chief (DG - Ep. 2)

WARNING: THIS POST CONTAINS SOME MILDLY FOUL LANGUAGE.

"You have any idea how frustrating this is, Murphy?"

"I'm starting to get a clearer picture, chief." Simon smirks a little, and swallows hard, "the larger the vein on the side of your forehead gets."

The chief just sighs, looks at Simon with puzzlement, and crosses his arms again. His gaze changes from Simon to Bruce, then back to the somewhat nervous, one-eyed detective.

"I'll break it down a little more for you fellas." The chief begins talking in his daddy-knows-best voice, and throws a thick manilla folder down on his desk. "I get this report this morning about a victim discovered last night, and what this killer did to this guy looks so eerily similar to all that S*** that whats-his-name did when he was copycatting the killer you were following, Murphy." He begins to look confused as Simon's eye widens, "or, is the guy we didn't find the copycat. I can't keep all this straight myself, and I'm the d*** chief of this bureau." The chief leans on the front of his desk, picks up his handgun from the top of his desk and fingering it with his trigger hand, signals to Simon to close the blinds, which he does, and faces Bruce, who's snaps back to attention from checking out Melinda, the detective many in the department gingerly call the hottest crime-fighter in Petrina. When he sees that the gun has gotten Bruce's attention, he puts it back on his desk.

"Do you remember, Brucie boy, when you lost your finger paying homage to that guy, Larry Gardini, while off duty, might I add." He says something demeaning under his breath and with such gruff that neither detective can understand him and continues. The two look at each other with puzzled faces. "And you came to me for help because the bureau you were in was going to transfer you to where was it…again…?…my mind's blurry from all the drugs I'm not doing." He snaps his finger at Simon without breaking his stare on Bruce.

"Waterton, chief."

"WATERTON! That's right! No room to move up. Career cops 'aplenty in Waterton and not a hard crime happening as far as the eye can see!"

"That's a good city motto, chief." Simon hardly states while fingering the blinds and briefly looking out the office window.

The chief quickly points to Simon. "You're d*** right it is, champ." He crosses his arms and faces Bruce again. "Do you remember all the S*** I was saying before we got off on that awful tangent about that S***hole town down the road?" Bruce nods. "Good. So here's my problem. I took you in ooo…How many years ago?" Simon begins responding like he did for the first question, but the chief silences him with two fingers and low eyebrows, "I got this, buddy."

"Four years ago I took you on and all you had to do was catch bad guys who kill people, and keep an eye on our man, Simon, here, and from my estimations, you've done a piss-poor job at both, but 

I pay you a high salary because you continue to have potential. So now, I have a murder case that I need both of you on, but I have dumb-a$$ number one here," he points to Simon, "who can't see any homicide case clearly because his head's so far up the a$$ of a serial killer--who may either be in jail already or dead." Almost imitating a robot, the chief changes his pointing from one to the other, "and dumb-a$$ number two here, who can't do the job he should be doing anyways, that is," he begins imitating himself from earlier, "…Catching the bad guys and keeping an eye on his partner, blah blah blah," he begins a shooing motion with his hands. "Quit wasting my time, fellas. I got a killer to catch."

At this, Simon's intrigue about the case turns to anger and childlike disappointment, and he can't help himself from getting extremely close to the chief, "We can't be on this one, chief?!?" 

"Not until you clear your head."

"I think that's a brilliant call, skip."

"Shut the h*** up, Bruce. We need this, chief..." Simon pauses and looks frantically around the office,"I need this!"

"It really chaps my ass that I can't put my best guys for this case on this case, but you two are too much of a liability lately to me and the Bureau."

"You boys need to show me that you can handle the big cases again, and until you do, I'm going to give you the smaller ones." he throws a different, much thinner, manilla folder down on the desk, "Like Rebecca Frost, age 22, killed this morning. Looks pretty cut-and-dry." The cheif's cell starts ringing, he looks at it, and his face turns dark as he mutters, eyes still on the phone, to the two detectives, one pleased and one angry. "Now take the folder" he begins raising his voice "and GET the H*** out of my office."

Bruce grabs the folder and the men exit his office. The chief answers his phone "Hi, honey…I told you not to bother me at work…" and quickly slams the heavy metal door in their faces as they stand in the doorway.