"That's a good idea, El. I would've considered it if I didn't have to do my internships. It's good experience and I liked them, but going abroad would be cool," he said.
"Maybe you can take a vacation after graduation next year, bud." I gave his arm a squeeze. "Head off to where your heart desires before jumping into your professional career."
"I was thinking about applying to work at the LGBTQ Center. There are social workers there; Alice and Jake. Even if it's part-time to start while I look for something else. I think I want to work with kids." Robert's reflection of his future made me smile. Both of them brought strokes of joy to my life. Ten years ago, both of them sat trapped in our parents' home with nothing but religious texts filled with stories about a terrible, vengeful world. Now, they sat here with visions of their future and bravery to match.
"I think that's an awesome idea. You both have great ideas for your future. Keep it going," I encouraged them, in the best way I could.
"Well, you helped us get out here so it lets us have our own ideas. So, you keep thinking about the future, too." Ellie poked her fork in my direction. "Ya hear?"
We chuckled and I nodded. "I hear."
"Good. Also, your phone is buzzing on the kitchen counter." She pointed behind me. "It's gonna fall."
"Shit." I hopped up from my seat and snatched it before it vibrated off the edge. I swiped the screen and answered Angelina's call. "Hey, Angie."
"We got a body, girl. Get your Thursday night boots on. It's gonna be a long one."
"Different or the same as the last?" I glanced to Robert and Eleanor who chattered happily with each other.
"Not sure. Moreno got the call."
"All right. Meet you there. Text me the location."
"Will do." She ended the call and I sighed as I made my way back to the table.
"Duty calls," I said, finishing up the last bite of potatoes from my dish.
"At least you got to eat." Eleanor yawned. "I'll do the dishes."
"Really?" My brow furrowed and Robert perked up.
"Yeah. You and Robbie cooked so I can…"
"Thanks, El." I bent over to kiss her cheek on the way by. "Love you."
"Love you, too, Beej." She returned the gesture, then hugged me around the middle. I ran my fingers through her hair in an affectionate caress.
"Love you, boy." I smooched Robert's cheek and messed up his hair. "Take care of each other."
"Love you. We will."
While I tugged on my boots, I listened to the two of them. They talked about their friends, school, travel, literally anything. I pulled on my coat and heard Robert say, "Want to play Call of Duty with me? We can clean up after."
"We can play longer if we clean up real fast now."
"True. Okay. Let's do it."
I smiled as I made my way out the door to the job that pulled me away from them, but their quality time together made up for it.
"Another alley. Come on, perps. Get more creative." I grumbled as I arrived on the scene to meet Angelina.
"Not quite an alley this time. More like a stoop." She pointed to the battered staircase that led into a rain-soaked alley from a crusty old door.
"A stoop in an alley. What've we got?" I moved through the crowd of grunts to the tarp covering the body. I donned a pair of gloves, and crouched down when one of the CSI guys revealed the victim.
"Mid-twenties, white, male, with a white zip tie around his neck," Angelina answered, hovering over me to look on. Like the last victim, the zip tie dug into his flesh, though this time the discoloration seemed different. A frown tugged the corners of my mouth as I observed yet another young life snuffed out. Anger seized my torso and my hands balled into fists for a moment until I noticed something unusual on the victim's arm.
"He's more decomposed than the last—the odor is different." I lifted the tarp further down the torso and noted a welted pattern on the exposed portion of his arm. "Has the M.E. been here yet?"
"Not yet. Why?"
"These marks on his arm. They look like burns. Unusual ones."
"You got a good eye on you, Olsen," a somber croon called out. I stood up to face Agent Donovan, sort of, since she towered a few inches over me. "What's your instinct?"
Moreno strolled up behind her and nodded to us.
I gestured to the body at our feet. "Welts that look like burns. Unusually discolored. Zip tie might've been post-mortem."
"What makes you say that?" asked Angelina, though I wasn't sure if she asked out of a true question or to challenge me.
"The abrasion on the skin is orange-colored and his face isn't bloated. Also, no scratch marks or bruising from him trying to pull the ligature away." I rolled the gloves off my hands as I looked from Angelina to Donovan. Moreno's brow narrowed as he stared at the body.
"We'll confirm that with the M.E. In the meantime…" Donovan lifted an evidence bag and held it out to me. "This is for you."
"What is it?" I accepted it, and held it up to inspect the little glass bottle inside. "Another one?" I shook it gently and the metal inside clinked.
"Yup. Doesn't look the same as the other though. And there's writing on it." Donovan clapped me on the shoulder. "Moreno told me you have a connection to a scientist person who can identify this."
"Um…yeah. She's a professor at U.W."
"Get in touch with her, would you?" asked Donovan as a man with spiked hair appeared to hand her a tablet.
"So…are we on this case or off this case?" I glanced from her to Moreno.
"We're working together for now," he said, nodding to the body. "While we figure out what we've got going on here."
"You're stuck with me. Doesn't that make you giddy as fuck?" Donovan clapped me on the shoulder then stepped around us. "Call me after you talk to your contact," she said before heading off to an older man that waved her over. The spiked hair guy followed.
"I don't even have her number." I jabbed my thumb in Donovan's direction.
"I'll text it to you. Lubbock, go with her to see the professor." Moreno whipped out his phone and tapped away.
"It's like nine on a Thursday night." I cocked a brow at him. "Where am I supposed to find said professor?"
"Go in the morning, Olsen." He waved me off. "Write up the report tonight. Include your suspicion," he said, pocketing his phone again. "I sent you Donovan's number. Meet up at the office. Sorensen's heading in as well."
"Stolen away from a family dinner for paper." I grumbled to Angelina when Moreno disappeared to join the feds.
"At least you've got a nice souvenir." She patted the bag in my hand. "Hopefully it's not radioactive and leaves you infertile."
"Ugh." I rolled my eyes. "Let's interview the witnesses and get back."
"Oh, look who's wearing the pants in the family now." Angelina followed me as I headed toward the sidewalk where the bodega owner and patrons stood by waiting for us.
"Hardy har har, Angie."
She laughed, and gave my shoulder a shove.
We made it back to the station by one in the morning, and spent most of the time pushing paper to file the reports and to liaison with the FBI. By the time eight in the morning rolled around, Angelina and I sat slouched in our chairs, sipping on our fifth cup of coffee at least. Sorensen brought in egg sandwiches and donuts for us to snack on while we finished up.
By nine, I was pounding the pavement on my way to Mira's classroom. I called Eleanor on my way to check in.
"Hi, Beej."
"Hey, kid. Where are you?"
"At school. Where are you?"
"At your school, too." I chuckled while hopping up the steps. "Where in the University District are you?"
"Nowhere near the department of physics." Her giggle made me smile. "I'm by The Quad."
"Yep. Nowhere near me. Text me after class and if I'm done working, we can have lunch."
"Okay! See you later." The chirp in her voice had me smiling.
"Later," I said, before hanging up.
As e
xpected, Mira was in the middle of a class when I arrived. It wasn't as filled as the last one, and I wondered if I'd been to this particular class before. I couldn't tell. In typical fashion, I slid into a seat in the back of the room and the moment she saw me, a smirk tugged the corner of her crimson lips. Today, she wore a button-down blouse and a to-die-for pencil skirt. I could hardly handle looking at her for prolonged periods. She continued on teaching, however, discussing something about quantization.
"Particles can only assume certain energies in the quantum world." She set the chalk down on the ledge, then turned to her digital whiteboard and projection screen. "And those energy levels help us understand atomic structure."
On the projection screen, she pulled up the Periodic Table of Elements while on the whiteboard, examples of particle waves in a box came up. I couldn't follow much of what she was saying while I searched the periodic table for uranium and its atomic number; ninety-two, just like the bottle found with Dinah. I pulled the second bottle from my pocket, and held it up to inspect again. My brow furrowed as I turned it over in my palm while inside the bag. Unlike the last bottle, there wasn't a lone number on it. Instead, the messy scrawl read, Negative Metals Superman, Bey.
"What the hell?" I muttered under my breath.
"Miss Olsen," Mira's sharp tone snapped me from staring at the jar. "Can you tell me what this atomic structure belongs to?" She used a laser pointer to run the red beam over the projected drawing of an atom. In its standard presentation, a tight nucleus gathered the small circles at the center, and the orbits had a bunch of tiny circles scattered about. On top of the nucleus, the code, 92P 146N sat on top of it. Around the ring, one of the little circles was labeled, 92E.
"Um…" I stared at the screen as my heart pounded in my chest. A few heads in the room turned to look at me which only fueled the anxiety. It took a few seconds of staring at the number before my brain kicked in. "Uranium."
"Excellent. Can you tell us how you derived that answer?" Mira leaned against the desk, folding her arms over her middle and crossing her legs at the ankles. The cocky smirk on her mouth had me dying inside, though her eyes twinkled with mischief.
"Ninety-two." I gulped, sitting forward in the seat some. "Ninety-two protons in the nucleus, and ninety-two electrons in the orbit."
"Very good." Her smile broadened in a tell-tale manner before she clapped her hands once. "Now, bonus question before we call it a morning. Of the ninety-two electrons, how many are valence electrons?" When no one answered, she said, "This isn't just for Miss Olsen. It's for the rest of you, too. Any guesses?" She scanned the room. "No one? How about you, Miss Olsen. Fancy a guess?"
"Uh…" I had no fucking clue what a valence electron was. I stared at the screen and noted only one difference between the larger group of electrons scattered about. Around the outer orbit, six of them appeared bold or darker. "Um. Six?"
"Correct." Mira grinned at me and the class mumbled under their breath. "How'd you arrive at that?"
"The bubbles on the outside of the drawing up there are nice and bold. Just like your personality, Professor." I fought the twitch that threatened a smile. The class burst into muted laughter which forced a grin to my face.
"Class dismissed!" Mira called out over the ruckus of students gathering their belongings. She chuckled as she pushed herself up to sit on the desk again.
I made my way down the stairs after the class dispersed, and hopped up to sit on the desk beside her. "That was downright wicked."
"Had to put you on the spot or they might start questioning the student who carries a gun to class." She cocked a brow at me. "And a badge."
"Uh huh… I think you wanted to make me nervous."
"That, too." She crossed her legs, and turned slightly to face me. "Is this a social visit?"
"Do you want it to be?"
"A little…"
"Well, let's call it both then. I'm half here to say hello and half here because of work." I held up the evidence bag with the bottle. "Another one. Not uranium though."
"Hello." Her charming smile and cute head tilt sent a flutter of enjoyment through my core. She took the bag from me and carefully turned the jar around while examining it. "These are two separate metals."
"Two?" My brows lifted with the question. "Which two?"
"Not completely sure." She slid from her desk and nodded for me to follow her. "Let's go find out."
"Okay…" I hopped down and followed her to the door on the opposite side of the classroom from her office.
When she flicked on the lights, a large lab appeared. With its sterile whites, microscopes, and wall charts, it reminded me of high school science. Unlike old school labs, this one had a dozen computers, machines that I couldn't identify, and box-like apparatuses perched on the desks. Mira approached a counter against the wall that appeared to have the most sophisticated equipment.
"Can I open this?" she asked, tugging on a pair of gloves.
I nodded, watching as she pulled a small tray in front of her. "It's been processed and such."
"Let's find out what we've got here." She opened the bag, then the jar, pouring out the contents onto a tray. I watched as she separated the six pieces of silver-gray metal from the shinier blueish-white metal. The color tone differences appeared minimal at best. "This one…" She used a small tweezer to tap the blue-white metal. "Is hard and brittle. And—" Mira opened a drawer and pulled out a small curved magnet. The moment she placed it near the tray, the blue-white metal stuck to it. "Magnetic. This is cobalt."
"Not radioactive."
"Nope." She handed me the magnet with the pieces still attached. "And this one," she said, poking around at the rest. "Is very light. It's magnesium."
"Okay so a jar of cobalt and magnesium means what?"
"Nothing." She shrugged, setting the tweezers down at the same time I lowered the magnet. "They're just as they are."
I leaned my elbows on the counter and stared down at the objects. Frustration left a pitted feeling in my gut and I picked up the jar, turning it around to show her the strange writing.
"Negative metals Superman bey?" Her brows furrowed. "What does that mean?"
"No idea. We've got some metals, but unless you've got some Kryptonite in your back pocket, I have no idea what this means." I set the jar down and turned my back to the counter, leaning against it. "We're now assisting the feds on this case because of the unusual nature of it."
"Kryptonite…" She ignored my statement about the case, and continued to gaze at the mess in front of her. Mira's eyes narrowed, her lips pursed, and her eyes darted all over the place as if processing rapid text on a screen. Without warning, she snatched up the glass bottle and carried it over to a blackboard at the back of the class.
"What are we doing?" I followed her as she snatched a piece of chalk off the ledge of the board.
Again, she didn't answer me, but wrote down the whole phrase on the board, Negative metals Superman bey, followed by, Mg=12 Co=27, then looked at me. "Metals."
"Okay. Magnesium's atomic number is twelve and cobalt twenty-seven." I took a step back to watch her write everything down.
"Right." She turned back to the board, then wrote, Superman=Krypton=Kr=36, then paused for a moment. Chalk dust tumbled from her hand as she scribbled with fury. Be=Beryllium=4 Y=Yttrium=39. "Do you see that?" she asked, gazing at me from over her shoulder while tapping the chalk on the board.
"I…absolutely do not see—is Yttrium an actual thing?"
She waved her hand in front of her face as if brushing off the silly notion. "It's a transition metal like cobalt."
"Okay. Do all of these things together make a bomb or something?"
"No. Look." Every inch of her seemed to tremble with excitement. On the board, under everything else, she wrote, -122736439. She tapped on the dash and said, "Negative."
"Wait. It's a number? A coded number?"
"I mean, it could be? All of this from one bottle. The uranium only had a ninety-two." She s
et the chalk down and I whipped my phone from my pocket. "Of course, you'll have to figure out which of the metals comes first, but essentially, this is it."
"I'm taking a picture of this and sending it to them." I readied my phone, holding it up to get all of her writing in the picture. She stepped back and allowed me to. Without wasting a second, I sent the picture to Donovan and the rest of the team. "Thank you. I don't know if it means anything, but it's a start."
"Well, this was exciting for a moment." Mira propped her hands on her hips and stared at the board. "Though negative millions is an unusual thing. It could be anything from a monetary amount to some sort of deeper thing. Or nothing at all."
"Uncertainty," I said, and she turned to face me. "Our perception changes the measurement."
"Miss Olsen, you've been paying attention in my classes more than I thought," she said, nearly beaming from ear to ear.
I've been paying attention to you in your classes, is what I wanted to say, but went with, "You're an effective teacher, what can I say?"
"That you're nerdier than I thought."
I laughed and gestured to the board. "Like you? You nearly broke into an excited sweat over this."
"Oh, I did. I definitely did."
My phone buzzed in my palm and I looked down to see a text back from Donovan, Wow. We're pulling evidence from the other vics to see if something similar was found on them. Stay tuned.
"What'd they say?" Mira asked and I turned my phone around to show her. "Impressive. Am I actually helping the FBI?"
"You are. Look out or you might find yourself recruited." I pocketed my phone. "Or at least a consultant."
"That sounds stressful." She scrunched up her face and chuckled. "But exciting."
"As soon as we crack the connection in this case using our resources, the feds will claim jurisdiction. Excitement ends there," I said, stealing a glance at the silver buckle of her belt when she looked back to the board. It sat flat against her firm stomach. I envisioned her in her soccer gear, sweaty and muscled while racing up and down the pitch.
"Unfortunate. You seem like a gifted detective," she said, meeting my gaze when she turned back to me. I tried to squash the heat in my face by thinking of something else. Like her rejecting me and running off.
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