Fusion Corp's Website

When Detective Cassandra Elliot pushed open the door into the office she shared, quite unfortunately, with her partner, she was not expecting to see a large yellow post-it note stuck to the screen of her computer. The bottle of rum was a bit strange, as well. She calmly set her black handbag down under her desk, and peeled the sticky note off. The bottle of rum was largely forgotten until Detective—how he made the promotion, she would never know—Rupert Kelley came in, and said something worthy of suspicion:

“Rum? Are you going through my desk now?”

She looked up from the note as she waited for Firefox to boot up. It was Firefox: that wouldn’t take long. “Detective,” she answered levelly, “have you discussed this problem with your therapist?”

“...Is that Fusion Corp’s website? You need a password to get anywhere at that place.”

In the few months since she’d been saddled with him, a sad fact had emerged: Detective Kelley was terrible at changing subjects. Cassandra was looking at the computer screen now, the yellow post-it note stuck to her flat panel’s black frame as she typed from it onto the login box. Her eyes never went to her hands as they flicked across the keys.

“Woah!” In an abrupt dash, she suddenly had one warm and unwanted male hand on her shoulder, and another on the desk next to her keyboard. “You’re in! How did you—” She could actually feel the moment when his skills of observation caught up with the stationary post-it note on her screen. He stiffened. “Was that with the bottle?”

“Yes,” Cassandra answered simply. Fusion Corp’s files opened up before her in a cascade of options. She’d been trying to request the password to this site ever since Fusionist’s death—the FBI had been sitting on their hands, though. They had the place cracked. They simply didn’t wish to give her access. She couldn’t help but think that if a pet zealot like Rupert had requested the information, it would have been delivered in a hand basket, with complementary fruit.

She could settle for a post-it note and rum, as long as it got results.

The laboratory footage section proved to be very enlightening. Cassandra downloaded the files and set them to play in succession, as she took out a large notepad and began to scribble odd notes. Half-way through the first video, Detective Kelley had the good grace to finally remove his hands back into his own personal space. “What the hell is this?”

“I believe,” Cassandra said, flipping the pen over her fingers like a baton, “it’s something between an experiment and a torture session.” She tapped at the screen with the pen’s end. “That’s the youngest sister—Ruby Lupin, wasn’t it? And that,” another tap, another part of the screen, “would be Fusionist. It looks like they’re trying to get her to produce her electrici—”

“I know what they’re doing, Detective Elliot. Thanks.”

“Then don’t ask,” Cassandra stated simply, as the next video began playing. Again, a strange mixture of torture and science—this time focused on Rupert’s pet project, Emerald Lupin. The next video brought in the eldest sister, Sapphire Lupin. Others showed group sessions, where one sister’s pain was played off of the others, to make them complete tasks. There were mutants beside the sisters, as well—some of them she recognized from past investigations, others were just faces without names to her. Detective Kelley, blissfully, kept both his commentary and his hands to himself. When she felt she’d learned all there was to learn, without thorough study, from the videos, she went back to the main navigation for the site. Her eyebrows furrowed in concentration. “Look at this—this collar.” It had its own video; it floated in a tub of chemicals. The lab reports for its testing gave the image meaning. The collar was ringed with inward-facing spikes. Even with a casual glance at the write-ups for its usage, it was... quite significant to the Lupin sister’s cases. Those spikes packed a chemical cocktail that—she searched again for the line—made “the wearer go mad in animalistic furry”. It was quite possibly a reason for the D.A. to drop the old murder charges that Emerald had racked up. Then again, in light of her recent involvement at King Pharmaceuticals, the D.A. might not be feeling so generous. Cassandra would try contacting their office... but she didn’t think she’d necessarily have much luck. Like her request for the password to Fusion Corp’s archives, any suggestion of leniency from her was more than likely to fall on deaf ears.

“Do you think we should contact the D.A.?” Rupert asked. “That looked like a reason to drop the murder charges against them, if I’ve ever seen one.” Those precise words actually left his mouth. Cassandra swiveled her chair, silently, to look at him.

“Yes,” she finally answered. “Would you like to make the call?”

“I’ll get on it,” he said. He actually said that. And he walked over, and picked up his phone.

Cassandra was left sitting in her chair, watching his back as he dialed. The bottle of rum was at her elbow. All of the sudden, it was... tempting.