“...Martinez.”

  “Dahl,” whispered Stacy Gelr, nudging the bck-haired girl in the bck band shirt to her left and snapping her out of her thousand-yard stare.

  “Here!” Dahlia blurted out, as the rest of homeroom stifled ughter.

  “I called your name three times, Ms. Martinez,” said Mr. Corbin. “What was outside that was so interesting?”

  “It was nothing,” she replied.

  “I realize roll call isn’t the most thrilling part of my css,” joked Mr. Corbin, “but let’s try to avoid daydreaming. Okay, Ms. Martinez? Who knows, you might actually learn something by the end of this semester.”

  As Mr. Corbin returned to roll call, Dahlia returned to staring out into the schoolyard. The familiar-looking boy she’d caught glimpses of on her way to school was what she was looking at when Stacy had nudged her. He was about nine or ten years old–too young to be hanging out around a high school–with short brown hair. He looked pale, even paler than Dahlia, who Heather Bowman and Stephanie Jones would often teasingly refer to as “Bck Dahlia”, like the murder victim, because she “looked like death.” Each time Dahlia saw the boy, he was staring straight at her, as if expecting something. Dahlia couldn’t remember where she’d seen him before, but as he was nowhere to be seen when she looked outside again, she decided not to think about it any more today.

  Dahlia pulled out her chemistry notebook and a pencil and began listening to Mr. Corbin’s lecture. Mr. Corbin was technically right about roll call not being the most interesting part of today’s css, but the rest of css wasn’t interesting enough to keep Dahlia from thinking about the boy’s face and wondering where she’d seen it before. By the end of css, all Dahlia could really remember of the lecture was that there’s iron, nickel, and small amounts of some other stuff in meteorites. She’d have to get Stacy to let her copy her notes ter.

  Stacy Gelr was Dahlia’s best friend since freshman year. She was one of the prettiest girls in school–tall, blonde, tried out for cheerleading and could have made the team, but decided she wasn’t interested. An honor roll student, possibly even valedictorian this year. By all accounts, it didn’t make sense for Stacy, the smart, pretty, popur girl, to move in the same cliques as Dahlia, the loner who wore all bck and listened to emo music. What Dahlia knew that most of the James Harper Public High School student body didn’t was that she and Stacy had a shared love for the band Drown Your Sorrows. Dahlia’s favorite album was their second, Love and Vengeance. Stacy preferred their debut, Hopeless Juliet, the album that got her through what she called the worst year of her life. Both were excited about the band’s next project, which frontman Johnny Method announced on the band’s official blog under the tentative title “Tonight We May Die”. But where Dahlia openly expressed her love of emo music, bck clothing, and the occult, even reveling in Heather and Stephanie’s morbid nickname for her, Stacy created a facade of “normalcy”, keeping everyone but Dahlia at arm’s length, just close enough to seem sociable, without exposing the real Stacy to the world. She lived with her mother and didn’t like to talk about her father, or about the middle school she attended in Newark. She wasn’t pale like Dahlia, but just the right shade of tanned, with a figure that often held the starring role in the sexual fantasies of many of her male cssmates–a body that nobody would bme her for funting–but she always wore sweaters or long-sleeved shirts around people who knew her. Dahlia knew this was to hide the scars on her arm, long since healed, but still just visible enough for her to be self-conscious about them.

  “So what were you looking at?” asked Stacy as the girls walked to their next css together.

  “I thought I saw a kid,” replied Dahlia. “Like a little boy, hanging out in the yard.”

  “So?” said Stacy. “Maybe it’s someone’s little brother or something.”

  “But I can’t shake the feeling,” Dahlia began. “N-never mind. It’s not important.”

  “Are you okay? You’ve been out of it all morning.”

  “Totally,” lied Dahlia. “Yeah, just a bit tired, maybe… Hey, can you lend me your chemistry notes next period? I totally spaced for half of what Corbin was saying.”

  “It’s history next. Don’t you have a D in that?”

  “So?”

  “So do you really want to spend next period copying chem notes instead of paying attention in a css you’re already failing? I’ll let you see them ter. We’re walking home together anyway, right?”

  “Right. Yeah, that makes more sense. I gotta go. See you at lunch.”

  Patrolman Davidson watched from behind the police barricade as Ironcd made his descent. The crowd opened up to give him nding space and began cheering. Through the loudspeaker in his armored suit, he addressed the crowd.

  “Would everyone move to one side, please? We’ve got our forensic van coming and they need space to get through. Thank you.” He then turned and spoke to the patrolman.

  “Did you move the victims?”

  “County coroner hasn’t arrived yet,” answered Davidson, lifting the police tape to allow Ironcd through. “The John Doe’s just back there.” Davidson pointed past the fleet of cop cars and other emergency vehicles toward where a Voss Sanitation garbage truck crashed into a city bus. Ironcd ducked under the tape and walked toward the white tarp poorly concealing the bloody mess that used to be a person underneath. Behind him, Davidson called for another officer to take his pce at the barricade.

  “The driver is still on the bus. The other passengers,” began Davidson.

  “I’m not here about the driver or the passengers,” interrupted Ironcd, yanking the tarp off of the John Doe’s body and tossing it aside in one fluid motion.

  “Uh, you’re supposed to wait for the coroner before touching the body,” said Davidson, nervously.

  “I don’t work for the Empire City police,” replied Ironcd. “I work for the federal government. Have your boss take it up with my boss.” Davidson decided to let the man in the weaponized metal suit examine the body without pressing the issue. It would’ve been stupid to even ask why the Extreme Threat Rapid Analysis and Suppression Unit–otherwise known as EXTRAS–was called in. Whatever killed the victim outside of the bus was obviously not human. It looked like he had been mauled by some wild animal. Ironcd kneeled and searched the tattered remains of the victim’s apparel–a bck two-piece suit, no identifiable brand bel–to confirm he carried no identification. From his inside suit pocket, he retrieved a leather wallet, with the letters “BMF” stitched into it. The sole contents were 394 in cash. No driver’s license. No credit card.

  Ironcd then moved on to examine the victim himself. Turning what was left of the head to face him, he stared into the corpse’s lifeless eyes, allowing his helmet’s camera to capture an image and begin cross-referencing it with local, national, and interpol databases. The process would take a while. In the meantime, Ironcd switched his visual feed to deep-tissue scan mode and ran his right hand over the corpse’s wounds, eventually pausing over his abdomen, then standing up. He turned to one of the yellow-cd forensic technicians who had disembarked from the EXTRAS van and were now standing next to him and patrolman Davidson.

  “There’s a small non-metallic object embedded in his lower right torso, 1.2 centimeters deep,” said Ironcd to the technician. “Pull it out and bag it for me.”

  Ironcd walked over to a pistol lying on the pavement near an evidence marker a few feet away from the body. Customized Star Model B, 9mm. Suppressor attached. He picked up the gun, ejected the magazine, and cleared the chamber, catching the ejected round and examining it. No identifiable distinct markings. He pced the weapon, magazine, and loose round into individual evidence bags produced by the other technician, who proceeded to bel and carry the bags back to the EXTRAS van.

  “Hey, wait a minute,” stammered Davidson, incredulously. “Examining the crime scene is one thing, but removing evidence?”

  “EXTRAS is taking over this investigation,” responded Ironcd, already examining the side of the bus. “All the evidence is coming back with us. You want to help? Get on the radio and tell your boss.” Davidson walked away, presumably to find a radio.

  Ironcd spoke into his left palm, “Luminol,” then turned it towards the side of the bus. A fine mist issued from the suit, coating the bus as he slowly swept his arm from left to right in front of him.

  “Cease,” said Ironcd. The spray terminated in response. “Ultraviolet.” Ironcd’s view dimmed, the filters cutting out most light in the visible spectrum. The side of the bus he had sprayed glowed pale blue in a speckled pattern, radiating outward from a single void in the middle. Ironcd approached the void, which looked like the silhouette of a person, then turned on the spot.

  “HUD, local surveilnce map overy, mark cameras. Panoramic scan.” Dozens of yellow circur icons appeared in Ironcd’s field of vision. He turned his head 90 degrees to the left, then back to the right. “Halt scan. Remove obstructed cameras.” Most of the yellow circur icons vanished. “Remove cameras with live feed only.” Half of the remaining icons vanished, leaving only three, with the nearest being directly across the street from the site of the accident. Ironcd approached the location and examined the camera, an old Voss Industries model from the early ‘90s, inoperable, with a crescent-shaped piece of metal sticking out of it. The shape was unmistakable, of course. The same type of weapon had been present at several murder scenes in the early ‘70s.

  “Yeah, we noticed that when we got here as well,” said Davidson, pointing to the camera. “Do you think it’s him? Or just a copycat?”

  “What were you about to tell me about the other passengers?” asked Ironcd, ignoring Davidson’s questions.

  “Just that they’ve all been taken to hospitals for their injuries,” answered the patrolman. “Couldn’t actually be him, right? I mean… he’d be in his 50s or 60s now.”

  “Did you get any of their statements before that?” Ironcd cut Davidson off.

  “No. Just their names.”

  “Alright, I’m going to need those, and the hospitals they were going to.”

  An EXTRAS forensic technician approached Ironcd and Davidson. “Sir,” she said to Ironcd, handing over an evidence bag. “You wanted me to remove this from the victim’s wounds.”

  Ironcd held up the bag, examining the contents, a single small triangur object, covered in blood.

  “Is that,” inquired Davidson, “a shark tooth?”

  Stacy tapped her foot impatiently. Every day since she started high school, without fail, Stacy had gotten home by 3 PM to take her second Prozac. It was now 2:39 and the bus still hadn’t arrived.

  “Maybe we should walk,” suggested Dahlia. “At least to the next stop.”

  “Alright,” answered Stacy. The pair walked in silence for the next five minutes. There was still no sign of the bus.

  “Do you think something happened,” asked Dahlia, as Stacy pulled out her mPhone to check for local news reports. After a few seconds, Stacy responded.

  “Oh my God.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “A garbage truck crashed into a city bus this morning. Says the driver and one of the passengers was killed.”

  “Oh, shit. But I mean, that wouldn’t still be affecting service now, right?”

  “EXTRAS is investigating possible meta-terrorism connected with the crash,” read Stacy.

  “Guess we’re walking,” said Dahlia, looking up to suddenly spot a familiar figure. “Hold it, look!” Dahlia grabbed Stacy’s arm and began dragging her along in pursuit of the pale-faced boy. “Hey, kid!”

  “What? Dahlia? Where are we going,” asked Stacy, as Dahlia led her down a side street. “Our houses are this way.”

  “I know,” said Dahlia. “But there’s something I have to check first.”

  “Were you calling for a kid? What kid?”

  “You didn’t see him? Come on.” Dahlia pursued the child several blocks, dragging Stacy along with her, protesting the whole time, until finally the pair reached a run-down suburb. The child ducked under a worn-down chain link fence and ran around the back of one of the nearby houses.

  “This one,” said Dahlia, talking to herself, almost forgetting Stacy was there with her.

  “Dahl, why are we here,” asked Stacy, a nervous tremor just barely audible in her voice. “I don’t like it here, Dahl. I want to go home.”

  “In a minute, Stace,” responded Dahlia, “I just want to check out where the kid went, and then we’ll go.”

  “What kid?! I never saw any kid! Dahlia, please. I’m really freaking out.”

  “Listen to your friend,” said a masculine voice. “It’s not safe here.”

  Dahlia turned toward the source of the voice to see a figure retreating into the shadows. “What do you mean ‘not safe’,” asked Dahlia. “Who are you and what do you know about this house?”

  “Who are you talking to,” asked the now terrified Stacy.

  “You mean you didn’t hear him?”

  “Who? There’s nobody here.”

  “Alright look, two minutes and then we’ll go,” said Dahlia, lifting up the chain link fence and ducking under it.

  “I’m gonna call my parents,” said Stacy. “Let them know where we are.”

  Dahlia had already crossed the yard and was circling around the back of the house when the sound of the fence being lifted broke the eerie silence of the neighborhood. There was no back door. Only a padlocked celr door. There was nowhere for the child to hide, and yet somehow the child had disappeared.

  “I don’t have a signal here,” said Stacy’s voice, “Can we go now?”

  Dahlia looked up from the lock and saw a handsome but mean-looking man in a blue business suit approaching the pair from behind Stacy, who had crossed the yard to accompany her. Startled, she thought she cried out, but no sound escaped her lips. Her mouth formed her friend’s name, but to no avail. Stacy couldn’t hear her warning. Dahlia couldn’t even hear it herself. She shoved Stacy aside to attempt to shield her from this stranger, and as Stacy silently hit the ground, Dahlia saw what the man was holding in his right hand: A sawed-off shotgun, pointed directly at her chest.

  The weapon fired, but with no sound, Dahlia’s only indicator that she had been shot was the fsh of light issuing from the barrel an instant before the impact knocked her to the ground. As she y dying, struggling to stay conscious, she watched as her best friend screamed soundlessly for help that would never come, before being picked up by the man in the blue suit and carried away. As her life faded, she wished desperately that she could do anything to save her.