The last thing Cody Chase had on his mind when he dropped his brother at school earlier that morning was to be rushing back a few hours later to respond to a terrorist attack, much less finding out his brother and his best friend took down the threat.
“So let me get this straight? Both of you were able to take down a terrorist threat with nothing more than a little luck and ingenuity? I mean you guys did an outstanding job keeping the damage minimal, but what you guys did was extremely dangerous! But I guess that is beside the point now.”
He took a moment to turn his gaze in the direction of Striker being put in a SWAT van and continued.
“In the meantime, we’ve got to assess the situation and see why exactly the Ourborous decided to attack a college. It’s an unusual tactic even for them. I mean, what would they want of importance here? Do you guys have any ideas?”
Lance and Adam looked at each other both trying to figure it out. In all the commotion, no one had really mentioned why they were there but to make a statement.
“To be honest, Lieutenant, we don’t know exactly why they were here,” responded Lance. “It seemed to be a random attack to prove a point. However, if they were here to steal something there are literally hundreds of things they could have taken. So we wouldn’t be able to tell you."
Cody nodded in agreement and shook Lance’s hand.
“I understand. In the meantime, just take it easy but we will have to take you both to the station later to file an official police report.”
Then he leaned forward and whispered so as not to be heard amongst the commotion.
“Off the record, I am very proud of both of you! That was pretty cool!"
Straightening back up and adopting the serious police role again, changed his tone.
“Touch base with the medics to make sure you guys are alright, then stick around and I’ll take you down to the station myself. In the meantime, I’m going to see what we can make of this mystery.”
He finished his thought by walking toward the school about to call on his radio when he heard his name called out.
“Cody! Wait!”
He turned around to see Adam running toward him holding what looked like a vial in his hand.
“Seeing how big this situation is and how vast a crime scene you’re dealing with, go ahead and use my BioBots to help if you want,” said Adam. “This way they have a real test run and it might help you guys create a more thorough investigation.”
Cody paused.
“Are you sure? Didn’t you say earlier today that this was the only batch that you created? Also, did you have this in your possession the whole time? I thought this was part of your project. I mean, I would be willing to use it to see what it can do, but I have a lot of questions and you know that if we use this it will officially be part of evidence.”
“I am absolutely sure. I know I had said this was my only batch, but I have everything to make more. The whole reason why I put so much effort into the BioBots was to help you and law enforcement in general. And to answer your question about why I had it with me, I forgot it was in my pocket until shortly after everything went down. I must have put it in there after I showed the guys my demonstration. But now that I have it, let me show you all that you have to do. Just spray it all over the crime scenes and the bots will start analyzing and sending data to the crime lab. I’ll upload the app on your phone so you can start to see real-time analysis. Go ahead and use all of it since there is a LOT of ground to cover.”
Cody watched with amusement as Adam took his smartphone, added the app, and wished him good luck. Now with the bottle of robots in hand, Lieutenant Chase went to investigate the crime scene unsure of what he was going to encounter or discover.
That was three months ago.
Cody leaned back in his chair and rubbed his eyes. The last couple of months had been rough as there seemed to be an uptick in crime lately. Tonight was one of those rare nights where he could actually sit down at his desk and pore over his police reports. This one in particular was especially of interest. On the surface, everything indicated that it was an open-shut case with more than sufficient evidence to implicate Striker and his Ouroboros cohorts in their crimes. But for some reason, something didn’t sit right. The attack had no motive and even after doing a thorough search of the school, multiple times even, nothing appeared out of the ordinary.
He shook his head and yawned. He was going to run one more simulation of the school layout, courtesy of his brother’s BioBots. He absentmindedly reached for his coffee as he prepared the simulation programming to run a 3D walkaround. Not realizing how tired he was, he ended up grabbing a framed picture of his siblings instead of his coffee.
“You guys aren’t my coffee,” he mumbled to himself as he put all his focus on grabbing the to-go cup that had his family’s cafe logo on it.
“Now that’s more like it.”
He took a big swig just as the program signaled the end of the simulation. He finished his drink and transferred the simulation to a miniature holo table next to his desk. Perhaps a holographic version of the university layout would bring some clarity to his suspicions. All he saw was what he had seen what seemed like a hundred times already: the NAU gymnasium with every bullet hole, shell casing, hypothetical trajectories, and every possible DNA sample you could find. The entire campus was on display and everything was color-coordinated to designate every minute detail better.
As he was going over the crime scene again, something caught his attention that somehow hadn’t caught his eye before. A small shade of yellow showed up in an area of the school that was nowhere near where the action took place. However, this same shade of yellow matched quite a bit with the Ouroboros activity that took place in the gymnasium and the neighboring hallways. How was this one so isolated? Cody’s attention now back on full detective mode, he cross-referenced the simulation with a physical layout of the school that he had on file. If the evidence was correct this meant that an Ouroboros member was in the genetics lab at the time of the terrorist attack. Now why would a cult member be interested in a genetics lab? Cody wasn’t sure how it all connected yet, but it was no coincidence that what appeared to be a specific compound would mysteriously find its way into the lab when it didn’t show up previously.
Cody quickly started updating his report. Things were slowly starting to come together but he wasn’t quite sure how yet. After about 15 minutes, he was just about to start zooming in on the lab to get a closer look when he got a call that broke his concentration.
He quickly answered.
“Chase here. There’s been a what? A break-in at GenTek?! We’ll be there as soon as possible!”
Cody shut down his computer and put all the intel back in the file.
“Looks like I’ll be coming back to you later,” he said as he grabbed his gun and shield.
He then pulled out his comm unit and spoke into it:
“Alpha Team, we got a break-in at GenTek. Multiple hostiles and possible heavy firepower. Meet up at Hanger Bravo ASAP. We roll in five!”
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