The World Of Steam

2

I stepped into the crime scene, passing through the holographic tape, and saw a small, run down laboratory in front of me. The windows were splintered, split and broken, some missing small pieces. One window pane was completely shattered, welcoming in the deadly pollution as though it was an old friend. The walls were grey with dust and the surface was old and cracked like the desert ground. The metal, rusted door seemed to be hanging by a single hinge, ready to fall off at any given moment, but for some reason, it still stood there, as if to prolong its own torture. It was not a quiet ransacking, that one thing was certain. I was surprised that the entire building was still standing upright with all of the damage that it had sustained and not a giant pile of rubble. I was half expecting the building to collapse in on itself at any second. What kind of a person would work in a place like this? It was far from satisfactory for a scientist's needs. People crowded around the crime scene, talking to each other as a policeman tried to shoo them away, but to no avail. After all, something interesting was finally happening in this dreary, foggy metropolis. Everyone was stuck doing the same monotonous tasks every single day, so this was a surprise. A shocking surprise, but a surprise nonetheless. A couple of policemen in respirators spoke to each other. One of them shook his head and waved a hand half a moment later, blowing away his partner's comments. His partner simply shrugged, not seeming to mind the criticism at all. I stepped inside the laboratory and began to analyse the area, slowly turning my head from left to right. There was a single Bunsen burner hooked to a gas tap. Beakers, some full, some not, littered the place, a few having fallen on their sides. The tables were stained with various coloured chemicals that shimmered in the dim light. The walls were also permanently stained, shattered remnants of test tubes and beakers littering the floor. There were two blackboards that seemed to have been recently cleaned of their chalk markings, two large patches of white still left on them. There was a large air filter stuck to the wall, but the cover was undone and hanging by a single screw. The fan inside was snapped and shattered, rendering the life-saving machine beyond useless. I looked down at the floor and saw a small lake of polluted smoke waving about gently, hiding my shoes. The laboratory was of no use to anyone, not even as a storage facility. The same policeman that I had met stepped in after me, stopping right next to me. "I am guessing that you want my help to track down the scientist that worked here?" I asked him, hearing his footsteps.

"Yes."

"What do you know so far?"

"Not much. The scientist has disappeared, the place is like this, so we can only assume that he was either kidnapped, killed, or he escaped."

"Your powers of observation amuse me."

"Excuse me?" He asked me, offended at my remark. I sighed in the tiniest frustration and turned around, gestured to a window next to the broken door.

"Look at the glass, it's on the outside of the laboratory. This means that the scientist got out. So either, he escaped and is now in hiding, or he got out but did not make it very far. Someone was looking for him. He heard someone coming for him, there was probably a small scuffle and then he broke the window and climbed out. If he is as smart as the rest of the scientists, best chances are that he's still alive. We just have to find him."

"Jesus." He answered me in realisation.

"But one thing doesn't make sense."

"And that is?"

"The pollution has gotten inside. That means that this must have happened a day or two ago. Why would someone report it now? Not to mention the scale of the destruction. It seems rather excessive, don't you think?"

The policeman's eyebrows jumped up and down, himself silently agreeing with me.

"How large of a radius have you searched the area for?"

"One kilometre."

"Search four kilometres. Question anyone that could have a connection to the scientist. Bartenders, pub owners, the lookout guards, even the homeless. I want every witness that you can get your hands on."

The policeman nodded. "Yes sir." Without waiting, he quickly walked off, gathering his colleagues, beginning the lengthy process of the investigation. I looked around at the crime scene, taking down every little piece of evidence that I could. I suddenly spotted something, sticking out from behind a table, as if it had fallen behind it. Walking over to it, I picked it up and saw that it was a diary. I opened it. Inside were numerous scientific equations, some scrawled out, made unrecognisable. I flipped through the pages and saw sketches of numerous objects with annotations. Beakers, test tubes, chemical formula layouts. It was all much too complicated for me to understand. Putting the useless diary down onto a table, I walked over to the sink and saw that inside were a number of test tubes and beakers. It seemed that their contents had been flushed down the drain. After pondering for a small moment, I left the crime scene.