"Are you sure that's a person?" The photo looked like a massive tumor. The isometric and overhead views didn't look any different. Wet, slimy flesh. The problem was that all the organs and veins and viscera were littered around the outside like piñata decorations.

"Coroner confirmed that it was at one point a human male. 46 years old, widower. Kid in college came home for fall break and found—"

"The incredible inside out dad. Sick."

"That's not even the best part. We have reason to believe mister inside-out was an inside man."

"A thief?"

"Cop."

Noel leaned back in her seat and looked out the window at the passing parade of taxis as she let that process. "This is an ongoing investigation with Internal Affairs?" Nobody liked those guys. And they only got nastier further up the chain of command.

"Yes and no."

"Well it's a mutant that did it, right? That's why we're going in?"

"Actually, it's all you this time."

"Me?"

"You are Internal Affairs."

Oh. Right. The whole truth thing...

"Chief wants the truth so he went to a higher power. Besides. We're pretty sure that if it's a mutant, he's one that needs watching."

Why did she get the distinct impression that she didn't like where this was going?

"Well, I'll drop you off here."

The car slowed just outside a ring of flashing blue and red lights. Police tape was up marking off a skinny row house's front door. She could tell there was a body by the sheer number of police cars present. There were always more people at a crimes scene then needed. Police got the call and well, it was more interesting than the beat. "This had better not be what I think it is..."

She stepped out of the car in her dark grey wool suit. Despite the heat, it was a sort of shield. It marked her as more than a tech, more than a boy in blue and more than a plain clothes. Noel fished her badge out of her pocket, flipped it open and tucked it into her breast pocket so that it was as good as any name tag. The officer at the crime scene tape stopped her only until he heard the words Internal Affairs. The memorymancer imagined it traveling around the site like a shock wave after a bomb was dropped. Somehow, they all knew. She could tell by the looks she got as she approached the main event.

Muffled shouting made every last hair on her neck and arms stand on end. There was another body alright... but this one was still alive.

He'd seen some pretty messed up things in his time. This was one of them. It was a lot like the one before it, with the incredible inside-out man. The only difference was, this guy wasn't dead yet.

It was probably an unfortunate thing. Ashton hadn't wanted to look at the guy. A few words from the redheaded forensics girl were all he'd really needed. Inside-out, thrashing screaming unpleasantness had pretty much summed it up. He'd had to look, though. It was like a car crash. One peek led to two peeks.

Ashton turned away from the man with a look of disgust on his face.

"Consider me up-to-date on this whole thing, Anya..." He muttered to the redhead. "It's a good thing I didn't take you out for coffee before this... would have wasted a perfectly good muffin..."

The forensics investigator slapped her forehead. "Like I'd have gone with you at all..."

Ashton ignored her. His eyes had settled on someone out-of-place. The gray suit was a dead-giveaway. The woman wasn't part of the normal crowd. She had a scar on her mouth, too. Someone nudged him and whispered into his ear, 'Internal affairs'.

Ashton mouthed a miniature 'oh', then approached her gravely. "Detective Drake. Can I help you, Miss?" He stuffed his hands in his leather jacket's pockets, waiting for a response.

"What no handshake?" She'd seen him from the corner of her eye. Saw him stuff his hands deep down where they couldn't be seen. What was Drake hiding? Or was this the perpetual mutant non-contact thing again?

Grim lines made her face stiff as she turned away from what couldn't be unseen. "Federal Marshall Gage." The detective made a much easier object of scrutiny.

He looked a little scruffy around the edges like he'd rolled out of bed to get here, but there was definite shrewdness to his features. Detective Drake. Intelligence sat just behind his eyes. Leather jacket, slight accent, an expression of one part devil, one part concern and a dash of edginess. That was probably from the almost constant stream of noise leaking in from the other room. There was a minor inconsistency in the lay of his overclothes that spelled gun to the discerning eye, but that was all regulation. No custom tailored leather jacket for Drake. He was a real cop then. Not one that could afford to cut the lines of his suit to hide a holster.

Noel's first impression? He was a true bloodhound but wanted to appear for some reason as if he didn't care. He had a certain charisma and command of the situation. She could tell based on how others had a kind of gravity toward or around him, but somehow remained apart.

Hopefully he knew what he was doing. And hopefully he wasn't afraid to talk to Internal Affairs.

She made herself look back to the wiggling lump. Somebody was in there. "Got an ID on the victim?" There were curious details that helped her keep her cool. There wasn't as much blood as she would have expected. Instead there was— "Acid?" She took a few steps forward before she realized that she was actually getting close to... it.

The thin ornamental rug had been eaten away in splotchy patches, but was mostly gone from around the immediate area. There were even spots in sealed wood around... She looked at it again and suddenly the smell caught up with her all at once.

>>"What no handshake?"

He let his a thin smile be his taciturn response. His hands stayed where they were.

"Name?" He asked.

Her face was a mask that didn't hide her emotions well. There was a tautness to her features. Body language told him that comment might be the last of its kin. She was serious now, business as usual. With the body where and how it was, that probably had something to do with the change. It was gruesome. They could joke with people all they wanted. That did not change the fact. One learned to distance themselves from the grisly nature of a crime scene with dark humor, sarcasm, biting wit. He'd learned to space himself from it, to not let it bother him. That still never prepared one for this sort of thing. He mentally referred to it as a 'body', but of course... it wasn't a corpse yet... and so, he wouldn't joke about it. They were both adults. He wasn't kidding around here. She'd stopped, too. To joke at a crime scene like this one set a bad example for his subordinates. Nobody needed to get in the habit of having the back of their head smacked.

She introduced herself. He committed the name to memory. Federal Marshall Gage. That told him why she was here, 'nuff said. Ashton gave a slight nod.

Her eyes veered back towards the body. Ashton's eyes followed.

>>"Got an ID on the victim?" She asked.

Ashton recalled the vic's ID. One of the forensics team had plucked it out with a pair of tongs. They'd been lucky. It had fared better than the rug. "His name is Paul Perrette." He looked at her back as she stared at Paul. "Lives in Suburbia. A computer programmer. Different from the last one." He paused, and eyed her. "You are aware of the previous case similar to this?" Ashton asked her. It was mutant-related, it was likely to conclude. If she was here, she had probably connected some dots.

Unless she was one of those curious gawkers interesting crime scenes attracted.

Talking helped her not think about what was in front of her, but it had the awful side effect of tasting as well as smelling the odor. I will not make sick on the crime scene. I will not make sick on the crime scene. "The last one was a lot less fresh and lot more interesting to Internal Affairs." As AWOL cops often were. Especially when they were finally recovered. Dead.

Finally she turned away from the wriggling mass. Would they mercy kill it? Or would the screaming stop eventually on its own?

"Find a connection yet?" She was almost certain she would have nightmares about this moment. Standing close to it. Smelling it. Hearing it. What was it like in there? It really couldn't be pleasant.

Just thinking about it made her turn suddenly and make a bee line for outside. Drake could follow or not. But she would absolutely, under no circumstances toss her cookies in front of this many people.

Outside smelled cleaner. The sunshine was hopeful. She put her hands in her pockets and felt her cell phone and keys. She had options. She also noticed a pile of spew just shy of the rose bushes. Well at least she had a stronger stomach than that guy.

She was aware of the previous case, but this one was better. At least, to Internal Affairs.

"Ah," Ashton commented, hint of distrust creeping into his voice.

Internal Affairs had weird tastes in what they were interested in.

Had they found a connection yet? "Other than the similarities between the two victims, no. I've got my men digging, but we haven't found anything connecting the two yet......" He cut himself off in a trailing silence as Gage left without preamble. That was weird. She was weird, this Gage-lady. Scar by her mouth, Internal Affairs, and hasty exits. Shrugging towards the concerned looking officers on the sidelines, Ashton followed after her. Out the front door he went, into bright sunlight.

Ashton reached into his jacket pocket and flicked out a pair of shades. "You alright, Gage?" Ashton asked, standing a meter or so away. He had his arms crossed impatiently. Why had she booked it? Weak stomach? In her line of work?

She was definitely strange.

This was a hell of a case, though. He'd give her the benefit of the doubt, whatever she said.

She gulped down the crisp fresh air outside and felt better almost instantly. Here in the sunshine, it was impossible to imagine being trapped. Or being inside out. A chill ran down her spine, but Noel straightened her shoulders. That little pile of slop in the rosebush was heartening. She could do better than that guy at least.

Hands in pockets, she listened to Drake scuffle out after her. The officers milling around in the yard all seemed rather extraneous, but they did at least move aside for the gurney when the ambulance techs came through. She made it on scene before the ambulance? Or maybe they didn’t hurry since there was probably a very slim chance of surviving that.

> "You alright, Gage?"

”Never better.” The sarcasm left a bitter ear wax taste in her mouth. Whatever was happening here, it traced back to the MRC precinct and that reflected poorly on everyone involved. ”Homicides are not my specialty.” Obviously not her cup of tea either. Violence had obviously touched her life and left its mark on her face. ”I’m gonna go help canvas. The truth is what I do best, Detective.” So she’d better go find some so that she wouldn’t have to face another ball of human flesh.

She stepped off the porch and onto some squishy grass. She was Detective Drake’s man, at least until she found something that implicated someone in the system. For now, they were stuck with each other.

Never better? Obviously not. She had a weak stomach. This wasn't the sort of thing she dealt with often. No wonder she'd needed a break from it, and to get away from the victim. Ashton gave her the slightest of nods and a small grunt of acknowledgment. He eyed her curiously through darkened lenses. Just what was her specialty, then?

She seemed to predict that question, and gave him an answer. The Truth. For a second, his mind flashed to some show he'd caught the opening minutes of while channel-flipping a couple of times. X-something-or-other. The truth was out there.

"Right," Drake replied quietly. He watched her for a second, then followed after her.

He was skeptical at first. Most cops were. But after a couple interviews where she lead the neighbors into admitting whether their statements were true or at least partially filled in by their imagination. Sometimes people were stubborn and wouldn't admit it. Not to the police, but Noel found that most people when it really came down to it, where honest. Hopefully Detective Drake would appreciate her value on the job. It always felt good to Noel for her to do what she did best.

"So we've got multiple reports of a porche in this neighborhood. Nobody here lives above their means like that. White, male driver. No surprise there." She sniffed stiffly and continued summing up the situation as they tromped over the already over flattened front yard grass.

"Neighbor called it in because of the constant racket. Nothing out of place, door unlocked. Responding officer thought he was coming to settle a domestic dispute and instead walked in on our mild mannered computer programmer. No known threats or vendettas against him. Same as every other guy. Everyone loved him. You know the drill. He was working on something for a major client last the neighbor heard, but the neighbor was exaggerating the frequency with which they talked."

"The weird smell thing the neighbor was complaining about... She wasn't so sure about that part either." Noel was just so certain in her assessment of people. "It could have been a result of his circumstances." They stopped just short of the carpet and the stains. CSU was still taking pictures of everything, but the mound of man had been removed. The situation was manageable now. All tidy in clear plastic baggies and sectioned off into carefully labeled clues.

"Did you ever hear about the evolutional fiasco at the gradeschool uptown?" Before this, that was the source of all her nightmares. Even after wipe and wipe again some filth seemed to creep back in. Noel stuffed her hands into her pockets an waited for Drake to call the next shot.

Drake appreciated something, alright. He appreciated professionalism. Professionalism was not throwing up on the job. Miss Gage was doing a better job of that now than she had earlier, and she was getting the truth. As close to the truth as he suspected one could get using a mutant power. Because Gage was a mutant. He'd dealt with enough to catch the signs. Nobody was that good at picking lie from truth on the spot, short of Sherlock Holmes.

Ashton had never really liked Holmes. He was more of a Sam Spade guy. The Continental Operator. Maybe even Marlowe. He preferred the style. One thing usually led to another. Gage's useful power led them to new lines of investigation. They could follow that.

A Porche. He noted that as he walked through lawn.

A possible suspect? The client he was working for. Maybe.

A strange smell? Suspicious. Possibly, related to whatever had caused the programmer's situation... or the situation itself. Ick.

Ashton grunted in agreement. Maybe.

>>"Did you ever hear about the evolutional fiasco at the gradeschool uptown?"

Double Ick. "Yeah." Ashton replied succinctly, not sounding interested in discussing that. Melted gradeschoolers. Unpleasant. "I think we should go interview people at the programmer's work, get more information on this 'client' he had. There might be something there." He changed the subject.

Hey. She'd only brought up the school thing because that was her pervious source of nightmares. Drake's tone told her that he might be sharing that source, but certainly wasn't interested in swapping ewwy-gooey details. Just as Noel wouldn't be entering everything from today in her personal diary. Whatever. People melting and people turning inside out may be on the same level of sick, but they weren't exactly the same thing.

Noel wasn't usually a liberal talker, but Drake's non-committal silence prompted her to attempt to fit her foot in her mouth.

"If it's the kind of client we're interested in, they won't give up the records to get us anything good." Noel kicked a hillock of grass and a clod of grassy dirt scuttled along in front of them. It bounced messily off the shiny door of a little black sedan. It looked brand new and the tail lights flared as it unlocked for her.

Oh. It was his?

She rode the rest of the way to the office with her mouth shut, her ankles crossed and her hands folded in her lap.

The office wasn't much. A grouping of cubes behind an etched glass door in a less than stellar office building. It had working elevators, but that was probably the best thing going for it. Noel didn't think much of the historical-type buildings. With all her previous foot-in-mouth experiences, she let Drake take the lead here.

>>"If it's the kind of client we're interested in, they won't give up the records to get us anything good."

"Maybe," Ashton replied, shrug, tone-implied.

Maybe, they'd have to get rough and go through the hoops and chains of command? Maybe, they'd have to get silly? Maybe, they'd have to get dangerous. Or maybe they'd just do some generous sleuthing, and everyone would go home at the end of the day, having learned something.

The key remote rose in his hand as Ashton unlocked his black Ford Taurus. He went around to the driver's side, and got in. Off, they went. Silence was golden. They got there. Ashton took in all the details of the building as they rode the elevators up to the appropriate office floor. And then, they were there.

Paul Perrette's office area wasn't amazing. Cubicles. Basic furniture. Basic computer, the most basic employees you could fathom. It was a workday, and everyone was still behind their desks. This was no 'root around for clues in personal workplaces' mission. At least, not yet. That would be a good idea, though. Once they were done looking into interviewing people who knew or worked with the recently deceased, they could go that way.

On entering the office area, the first thing to happen was the supervisor leaving his office to say 'hey'. "Hey," Ashton said right back. A single eyebrow arched. Who said hey these days?

"Hi," the supervisor continued. "Yes?" He looked from Drake, to Gage, befuddlement obvious on his face. "What is this about?"

Drake looked at him seriously, playing the role of the peace-maker. "Can we go to your office to talk for a moment?"

The man was curious and worried, but he gave in. All it took was a badge-flash response in answer to the 'who are you' look on his face. Gage followed Drake's lead. They went to the super's office. Drake clued him in. "Paul Perrette died today." He told the man. Rattled off details he could release, told the man to keep it to himself. Figured it was the only way to get more information out of befuddled paranoid Mr. Richards. Finally, he got to the point. Richards was shaking. Ashton continued as if he didn't notice. "I'm going to ask for your cooperation, and employee cooperation. I'm going to need to speak with your employees, ask questions, look at Perrette's office, dig around. You understand, right?"

"Whatever for?"

The guy was a bit stupid for the role of supervisor. Ashton looked him dead in the eye. "The investigation." He said.

"Oh." The super said, paranoia deflating inside him like a popped balloon - not well. A bit all over the place. "I'll help however you need." His eyes shifted suspiciously from face to face.

"Thank you," Ashton dealt with it. "Gage?" He looked to the woman from Internal Affairs. He smiled confidently at her. "What do you want to look into first?" He asked.

Ashton was still in charge, see? But he could let her think she had a bit of say now and again. He wasn't one to neglect a lady, now was he?

"Paul Perrette died today." They didn't know that for sure, but Drake sounded very certain of himself. He had to believe it too or else the words would have tasted sour. Noel, in turn, found herself believing it. Even if at their last encounter the blob had been... making sounds.

"I would like a list of Paul's clients and recent jobs he's worked on, access to his computer and a list of his friends around the office." They needed something a little concrete so she wanted it all on paper even though hearing it from his lips could possibly give her some information. "Also a price list for the services you offer, if you have one on hand." A pricelist would be convenient to compare to Paul's financials. If he was freelancing, he might base his fees on totals he knew worked in practice.

The Peter Principle was alive and well it seemed. This supervisor seemed living proof. The supervisor's secretary jotted down most of what they asked for from memory and passed out a pricing flyer, but the supervisor was good for one thing. A couple well placed keystrokes and he accessed Paul's computer on an Administrative level. It was clear from the way he handled the keyboard and used shortcuts that this supervisor was promoted up from one of the other programming peons.

Supervisor man asked if they needed anything else, but he had done the best he could already. Retreat was inevitable. He made his way back to his office.

Noel, for all her mutation-related handicaps, had always gotten along rather well with technology so she plopped herself down at their victim's computer and went straight for the Sent Emails folder.

"You wanna drum up one of the friends? Mores? or maybe Gupta?" She read off of the secretary's pink sticky note and looked up to see a face hovering over the edge of the cubicle wall.

Noel was suddenly quite glad that her job did not force her to spend 8 hours a day in one of these.

"So-uh is Paul in some kind of trouble?" She was surprised (and a little ashamed at her surprise) by the accent that the nutmeg skinned man had. If she had to guess he was from Brooklyn. Not the expected melodious Indian accent.

"Vineet Gupta?"

"Everybody just calls me Vinny." His face disappeared as he ducked back into his cube before coming around with his hand outstretched. "I'm just one cube over. Sorry. I didn't mean to eavesdrop, but they're not exactly walls."

Letting Gage call the shots first off on the investigation hadn't just been to humor a lady. It had served double duty by allowing him to learn just how good a detective she was. So far, nothing outstanding had gotten his attention to tell him that she was useless. Everything had been fairly by the book. It was good to know that she had a handle on basic investigations procedures. You got to know the victim's friends, family, coworkers, asked around... maybe uncovered a motive or two. Looked for anything that stuck out.

She took computer duty. Good. She probably had an edge on him, there. Not that he was hopeless enough to require a new PDA every time his got a little problem, but... aside from knowing how to type up reports and do reboots, he wasn't anything special to write home about. He left her to do that. Him? She'd given him an order.

The timing was impressive. Almost as soon as she'd made her suggestion, one of the two she'd suggested had popped up. Had he been listening in? Ashton considered his face. He didn't look terribly guilty, not that one could tell always from a glance. Man's name was Vinny, though. Ashton never could trust a man named 'Vinny'. Almost as bad as 'Lonnie'.

Vinny came around to them, extending a hand. No hands were shaken. Ashton addressed him with cold efficiency.

"Can I speak with you, Mr. Gupta? Alone."

The hand dropped. Vinny looked a bit taken aback. He'd come over, looking for someone giving out handshakes and information. He'd gotten an inquisition. "Sure."

"I'll lead. Gage." A glance back. "Keep it up."

Vinny followed the detective out of the cubicle area, round the cubicle bank, to a makeshift office. It was actually the copy room, fax machine included. It needed a bit of cleaning up. Papers were scattered here or there on the table, on the floor. In the waste basket. Boxes weren't aligned with geometric efficiency, but it would do. Ashton shut the door behind Gupta. He stood by the door, cutting off any escape routes, crossed his arms.

Then, the questioning began.

Drake took Gupta away for an intense one on one. That was entirely fine by Noel even if she felt like Drake was hiding something from her. It didn't really matter. She was good at getting the truth from people. And the truth did always surface eventually. Even if it was temporary hidden.

For example, there was nothing of interest in the dead guy's e-mail box, but he hadn't cleaned out his trash in forever. Beyond the normal Pharmaceutical and "You've just won €10,000!" spam emails, there didn't seem to be much of a trend. It would probably take an analyst a few days to make any kind of connection between clients and the registered user of this machine.

Noel clicked around randomly hoping to get lucky before she remembered to check his sent emails. Another box he'd probably never emptied. They would at least have both ends of every conversation made from this unit.

She scrolled around until she noticed one email. There was one email to this one address whereas every other address had several instances of correspondence. Who did he send only one email to and what was in there?

She opened it up and it was a response. The original email was quoted below and though sparse, it was possibly the first link she had seen their victim make to something possibly less than legal.

Paul Perrette said on September 2, 2010 at 7:55am:
Lake Drive Bridge 2pm

>[e-mail] said on September 1, 2010 at 2:34am:
>>Where?

The agent printed the email. People signed up for throw away email addresses all the time, but they could get lucky and the domain could be registered to someone of interest. She checked the whois record for anything that might jump out at her, but the name meant nothing without further checking. She printed the domain records too. Just in case. If any of these names came up elsewhere in their investigation they could be in like Flynn.

She folded the pages, ran her nail along the fold to make an incredibly crisp crease and rapped her knuckles on the door to the impromptu private interrogation room that Drake had requisitioned to grill Gupta. "Going alright in there?" She should not have let him go alone. Gupta could have been a mind-altering mutant. She would have to express her displeasure on the matter.