The Cases of George Alpha #1 - Cupcakes

Walking the scene

After I finished talking to Eddie and Travis, I inserted my Smelling Ability into the slot behind my ear. Along with a Dispatcher implant, all police officers had an Ability implant installed as well, allowing them to insert a single Ability gem into their body and granting them a specific set of powers while it was in there.

The art of creating Abilities had long been lost, which meant there was only a finite amount out there. Ability distribution was managed by the city administration in charge of ability control, also known as the CAAC. Abilities were keyed to the spirit of the specific person and the CAAC was the only known institute that could do that. They carefully tracked everything, knowing exactly who had which Ability.

You could never own an Ability, only lease it. Most Abilities were leased to the police, some to other government employees. In theory regular citizens could apply for one as well, but due to the power and scarcity of the gems, they were very very expensive. Still, some of the rich elite had an Ability, mainly for the purpose of showing off to their equally rich friends.

As a police detective, the department had provided me with two Abilities, the first being an Ability of Smelling. After plugging it in I felt it boot up and rewire my senses. I started to smell things meters away and could even see the smells, see the trails that passing objects had left behind. Smelling was an excellent Ability for crime scene investigation.

After a minute or two, once it was fully active, I saw a cloud of red and brown hovering over the dead body, a strong metallic odour of blood, mixed with a hint of sewage and a lot of sweat from not washing for a very long time. Lingering on it made my stomach turn. 

A faint line of blackish smoke smelling like gunpowder trailed over the victim, coming from way back in the street. I followed it forward past the head of our John Doe and eventually found a bullet fragment on the street floor. The bullet had deviated upon punching through the victim's chest, hitting the ground far beyond. I called Rascal to come and secure the evidence.

I then decided to follow the bullet trail back down the street. The smoke line grew thicker and the gunpowder smell stronger as I moved further from the body in the opposite direction. I reached the alley leading towards the bakery, where enormous golden yellow clouds scenting like yeast, vanilla, flour and sugar were overpowering any other scent. It made my mouth water. The bakery scents seeped into Rowdy street, but I could still make out the bullet trail, which grew much stronger once past the alley.

I followed it further until the corner of 57th Street, where it suddenly stopped. Smoke from the cars passing was clouding my smell vision, but that would not explain why the trail disappeared so abruptly... firing the gun from a car and then driving off with the windows closed, would.

I looked around for a bullet casing near the trail's end, but found nothing. Either the killer had picked up the casing before he drove off, or he had fired from inside the car. Looking at it, I saw the bullet trail was entirely straight with a sudden end. This was no drive by shooting, the car had been stationary. But who would be waiting here for our victim to show up, to then shoot him?

I decided to check out the escape path our victim had taken. Near his body the stolen bag emitted the same golden yellow I got from the alley, very strongly. There were trails of the golden yellow all around, both from the trajectory the paper bag had made as from Travis, the baker boy. I could easily discern between the two separate trails, Travis's went to the back alley, paralleling the bullet trail, while the trail from the bag came from the alley leading up to Pleasant street, mixed with lines of the strong brown odour that identified our victim.

I slowly traced the escape route back to the bakery, where I could just make out a hint of darkbrown sweat to the side of the delicious smells coming from the bakery entrance, John Doe's waiting spot. 

An overload of strong smells was very hard to deal with, so I ejected my Smelling before heading into the store.