Replica (Original Work)

Chapter 6 - Exhaustion

It was official. I was at my limit. Absolute exhaustion. First, a case that made fuck all sense, then somebody follows me home, next I'm getting shot at, and now I'd had to sit and sort it out with Union cops for at least two hours. I attempted to catch some rest as Cutter drove back to HQ, but it was a no go. This was going to be an all nighter and then some.

Eva met us in the garage, smiling as always. She was wearing a light pink coat to combat the cold air leaking into the parking area, and looked almost impossibly wakeful. When the hell did she get the chance to sleep?

"Hi Lucy! Hi Harlan! Done with the police?"

"For now," I groaned, stretching as I made my way out of the car.

"That's good. We've got quite a bit to go over. Just follow meee..." She practically skipped to the elevator.

"I told you Cutter, she enjoys this too much," I said as we followed her into the cramped little space.

"Gotta be enthusiastic about what you do," Eva said. She held her ID badge up for the scanner and we were on our way to floor three. "First we'll go the conference room. I managed to identify this assassin of yours using our facial recognition software, guy was a real nasty piece of work."

The third floor conference room proved comfortable enough. There was enough room to seat twenty or so people, and the chair were nice, leather models. Not like the metal crap we got downstairs. Pierce, Boones, and Dunlap were already inside. A large holoscreen at the head of the room stood waiting for Eva to begin her presentation.

"Have a seat. Make yourselves comfortable," Eva said. "This might take a while." She pulled out a small remote from her coat pocket and turned the holoscreen on. An image of a man appeared, who I recognized as the shooter from my apartment.

"This is Richard Dell. He wasn't actually a hitman. He ran a legitimate business. That business just happened to involve killing people."

"So that makes him what? A bounty hunter?" I asked.

Eva grinned. "That's right! A solo operator too. He primarily dealt in terminating runaway genestock. He used about seven aliases to do his dirty work. We haven't been able to find out why he was hired to kill you Lucy, but we're working on it so don't worry."

Eva took a deep breath, and flicked the image to the side of the holoscreen so more documents on the man could appear alongside it. "Most of his employers seem to come out of the European Union. In fact, it's odd that he was even here."

"I'd say it's more odd that he tried to pull a job on Lucy, when it's clear she isn't a stray," Dunlap said, his thin face bearing genuine confusion. Stephen Dunlap was normally a vibrant fellow, but he looked exhausted as I was today, sunken eyed and dreary.

"A mystery indeed," Eva said, "I figure somebody must have payed him a whole load of cash to do it, but since he's based out of the EU and NAU and EU are on rather poor terms at the moment I haven't been able to find out who yet."

I threw my hands up in an exaggerated expression of frustration. "Who the fuck in the EU would even know my name, much less want me dead? I mean I know Hexadyn has branches there but they have their own SID to pull operations."

"It's a good question, Lucy. It might be able to help if we can manage to follow the money trail to an individual substate of the union, but that'll take some time. Odds are for now it's probably better to assume it has something to do with our current caseload."

I sighed. "Which consists of only one case."

"Well, it'd still probably be best if you didn't go back home, for safety's sake," Cutter said.