The EMTs were already there as he pulled up slowly in the Ozark County Sheriff’s Office SUV along the exchange of the highway and Farm to Market Road 1701-A. [i]Crash with fatality[/i] was the code. Jared Kineslaucher, the forensic photographer, was already there in gloved and boot covered. The EMTs he knew; Leia Hart and Matt Jones. He nodded at Jared, and began walking over to the EMTs with a flick of the cigarette carefully pursed between his chewed on lips and a hearty burp from the potato and sausage breakfast taco earlier. The forest green Dodge Ram truck was older, and had gone off the road and into a group of oak trees between one of the ramps to the freeway and FM-1701-A. There were no signs of hard breaking that he saw; the deceased just went headlong in. “Fall asleep?” Asked almost casually as the Sheriff’s Office Deputy reached the EMTs and the oaks. Deputy Luke Murphy forced his eyes open despite the smells that greeted him as he closed in on the Dodge truck. Bits of brain and hair and bone decorated the interior cab of the truck now, the seatbelt had snapped. The steering column was now part of the deceased’s chest. Leia Hart snorted, a fiery and opinionated but kind and compassionate woman. A mother through-and-through that held up a beer can. Murphy sighed, Matt Jones looking up, his hands covered in what was once a living person. The pain and frustration clear on his face. [i]They don’t pay y’all enough,[/i] Murphy thought and not for the first time, [i]then again they don’t pay any of us enough.[/i] Daylight was just starting to burn through the southern Missouri cloud cover. Those headed to Branson were luckily on the other side of the freeway, on the other side of the median, but it didn’t leave him much time all the same. They’d have to close the entire West bound side of the freeway because of the death until Forensics did their thing, a white SUV with the Ozark county seal pulling onto the side of the freeway marked their arrival at least. “Murph.” Joe Tomlin called out in greeting as he and his assistants passed by him. The assistants were new grads, and Murphy couldn’t say he knew them, so he kept his eyes on them as they passed a few seconds longer than usual. Knowing faces had always been part of his natural curiosities, and these days were a boon to his job performance, instead of a thing that might irritate the wrong person as it had in his former life in the US Army. A life nearly fifteen years and twenty pounds of weight added on ago. Digging into his cruiser’s trunk, and lighting another cigarette, Murphy began the job of dropping cones and a few flares. With the last flare the first set of headlights came upon him. It was a black vehicle, looked new, and fancy. A squint and a raise of his hand to block out some of the light revealed why the car looked so new and fancy: it was a Porsche SUV. Not the kind of car you saw a lot in Ozark county, but this one Murphy knew on sight. “Shit,” a low muttering as he took his newly lit cigarette and wasted it by tossing it out. That car belonged to the Stevens household. Rich people, how rich depended on who you asked. Mark Baker from Missouri National Bank in town said they were the richest people in southern Missouri in the after-Chamber of Commerce meeting drinks and card game a few months back, Murph vaguely recalled. He recalled much more the Scotch Mark had given him a glass of, and even more than that the pot of cash he lost to Jeff Zucker, the owner of the nearby Ford dealership. [i]Pocket Aces, my ass, Zucker.[/i] If there was anything that made him nervous, he knew, it was rich people. Not Mark or Jeff rich. They were both millionaires, but Missouri folk. And even they admitted they weren’t Stevens kind of rich. So rich they could afford mystery; the most anyone ever saw of the Stevens was when they’d appear in a nearby town for ice-cream, or pizza, or to take in a festival in a town square. They always tipped insane amounts, they were always kind and polite, and so everyone loved them. But any cop who wasn’t fresh or stupid knew that rich people were your worst nightmare: they didn’t care about fines, and any threat you made would easily be matched by their lawyers. Worse of all, piss off the wrong rich person and that could very well be your job. As much as those like Mark Baker and Jeff Zucker wanted to be friendly with officers of the law, they’d turn on those officers in a heartbeat if it meant access to the favor of someone as rich as the Stevens. Murphy had met the husband, Dan, supposedly a financial guru if you believed the rumors, only briefly. He was polite and quiet, and was gone almost as soon as he’d appeared in the gas station. People talked more about the wife, Rachel. A total knockout, Jess at the Sonic had called her. Jose at Quik-Mart had simply said, “those titties, man, and that ass. Sweet Jesus you should have seen her in those jeans, Murph.” The kid was less known. Private schooled, or home tutored, no one was quite sure. The old horse ranch turned palace next to the lake in the shadow of the Ozark Mountains took a while to get to: the very reason Murphy had cursed and put on his best charming smile as he adjusted his gunbelt and headed in the direction of the luxury SUV. The only way to that ranch-turned-palace the Stevens called home was FM 1701-A. For FM 1701-B, the back way, they’d have to go half an hour out of their way. But he couldn’t let them pass into an active crime scene, which it became once the driver of the Dodge truck was pronounced dead by the EMTs. Getting close enough to avoid the headlights, Murphy blinked at the sight he saw. How a woman could have both brunette hair and blonde hair he didn’t know. Streaks, maybe they called them? Roots? Whothefuckknew. The hair shined even in the dim light of the Porsche’s cab and the morning light peaking between gray clouds. The boys were right; she was uncomfortably pretty. A distraction came from behind her, and a welcome one. Murphy always liked kids. Her blonde son was maybe 8 or 9 years old. And he seemed excited at the sight of a police officer. Murphy tipped his hat to the kid, that best he could muster charming smile offered to the Mrs. Stevens. “Good morning officer. Is everything alright? The tone was warm, the voice was pleasant, a big relief for him. “No ma’am, there’s a…fatal,” the word came low and nearly hushed, sensitive to the ears of the kid in the backseat, “accident here. We have to keep the freeway closed until we finish processing the scene.” “Deputy Murphy!” Murphy blinked away from the luxury SUV’s driver side window. Suddenly there were two more cop cars; unmarked, men in suits wearing what looked like State Police badges walking his way from behind the luxury SUV. “One second, ma’am,” Murphy told the woman with an index finger raised in the air as he walked towards the State cops, confusion plain on his face. “What’s up fellas? Need to get through?” “We have the scene, Deputy Murphy. You can go. Please advise your Ozark county forensic and medical personnel of the same. State officials will be here shortly.” That look of confusion grew incredulous, even if Murphy tried to make it polite. “…for a dead kid?” Unless…had Stevens called in friends? Already? Murphy hadn’t seen any phone when he looked in her car. Another suit just smiled. “We heard the dispatch and picked it up, there’s a State Task Force in operation near Branson and we believe your deceased may be connected. So we have it.” [i]You’re lying.[/i] Murphy had Army friends in State Police, and they hadn’t said anything about his backwoods mountain little section of the state. “Sure, guys, let me just finish with this lady real quick and I’ll let them know.” Another of the four suits stepped forward. This one was older, a streak of gray in his close cropped brown haired head. “We said we have it, Deputy Murphy, unless you want a formal complaint issued against the Ozark County Sheriff’s Office? Your boss really want that? You wanna look for a new job this soon after you were given your second chance at Ozark?” Murphy stared, his face empty, his jaw slightly slacked in surprise, tightening in anger as each passing moment went by. “I’m sorry, who the hell are you?” “Call in the complaint,” grey streak said to the younger first State cop to step forward. The first one got his phone out, and Murphy found himself…laughing. Hands up, palms out. “Ya know what, fellas, I don’t really care that much. Y’all have a good morning.” He was already retrieving another cigarette by the time he’d begun walking away, back to his cruiser. “Aren’t you going to inform your county personnel?” “Your crime scene, pal,” was all he said, muffled as it was as he lit his cigarette, back to them. --- “What happened?” “We’re still finding out,” he said as he reached for the elevator button, saying more only when the elevator door closed both of them into the elevator, “As far as we know there was minor contamination of the subject.” “Minor?” the silver haired, older man, asked with a rising tone. “There is no minor contamination with this subject.” The younger man was no young man, he was a former field operative and station chief for the CIA long enough to know more than a little something. “Local county Sheriff’s Deputy spoke to the subject for maybe a minute before our boys arrived.” The doors opened to the underground level. Government blank walls greeted them, as did armed security wearing black and carrying SMGs. They were both checked, challenged for cards, and waved through. Through frosted doors opened up a bullpen of government issued cubicles and offices lining one wall, a glass wall on the other side revealing an array of server towers. Along the wall at the end there were only a few doors, one of which they entered, a long office with round conference table and chairs closer to the door, large desk with secure computer and a few chairs before it on the other. Once inside they talked more freely. “Is he a nobody?” Silver haired, older man asked as he took his place behind the desk, tossing his briefcase to the floor behind the desk. “No, not a nobody; former US Army infantry with a few combat tours. Awarded, marksman. Low grade badass.” “Since then?” The younger of the two shrugged, “Divorce, ex-girlfriends, removed from a department in Texas for not turning in all the coke from a bust.” “Druggie?” “Recreational, maybe, but sewer analysis don’t seem to indicate it. More likely a result of the divorce going on then.” “No real connection between the subject and this ‘low grade badass’?” Unconcerned the other man shook his head. “No. You could probably take him out yourself.” The glare from the older man was immediate. “…fine, fine. Keep it clean. Put surveillance on him. The subject is back home?” “Yep. We already have a team on the Deputy. There’s a few ways we can clean that if we need to.” A knock on the door stopped the conversation dead between the older silver haired man and the middle aged man. A woman younger than both came in, pants suit and flats, “Sirs. I have the update on the subject we brought in.” The silver haired man motioned her forward, the other man closed the door behind her and stayed by the door, silent. “As far as we can tell there may not be a traditional electronic system she can’t bypass or manipulate with enough time and effort.” “That what the computer modeling is telling you?” “Yes sir,” she nodded, “both the predictive AI and our own techs confirm more or less the same thing.” “More or less?” “The AI can keep the subject firewalled, but it takes a large strain on the overall NITE network.” “You understand, Ms. Mendoza, there’s no way we can allow this girl to breach that system and find her way into the secure system?” That made the woman pause. She didn’t know what the secure system was, or was for, but she knew it existed in the depths of the underground facility, somewhere, dug into the Ozark mountains as half their facility was. “Yes sir. The NITE system recommends we remove the subject to a more permanent holding facility, but…we won’t be able to test her as well as we can here. The predictive AI combined with the NITE system…you’re not finding that kind of computing power anywhere else. Nowhere secure enough to do this, anyway, unless the Metahuman Containment Zone is complete?” The silver haired man simply stared for a breath, or five. “It’s not. Is the subject compliant?” “As well as can be expected, sure, but every model we run suggests she may be an outlier, disassociated with any mission we’d give.” “Is she a liability?” The question came hard, and from the middle aged man by the door. Mendoza turned her shoulders to answer it. “She could be.” “Get her out of here. We shouldn’t have accepted her here to begin with. This facility has one mission, you start breaking that up into multiple missions and mistakes will happen.” The silver haired man behind the desk tilted his head, curiously, “Yes, yes I’m aware of that, however we did the overall Agency a favor so that they would in turn do US a favor, or do you not remember the shit show that brought us all here?” “She’s a liability! ‘Could be’, my ass, that’s analyst speak for ‘probably but what the hell do I know?’ And you should know it.” “Um,” the woman tried to interject, but was waved off by the man behind the desk. “Get your shit shoveling boots on, my friend. Mendoza, you secure this subject as much as possible. I’ll request to DC more of NITE’s resources to increase the firewalls around your subject. You have two days to figure out, for sure, whether she is a liability we have to dump or one we can relocate and begin to train for something fucking useful. Clear?” “Crystal, Sir, thank you.” --- “Hello, Tessia,” Miranda Mendoza smiled as she walked in the round walled ‘apartment’; outside the white walls were servers and technicians, the entire apartment built on a platform and placed in the middle of a much larger underground room. Tessia could come and go as she pleased, however she was escorted when going to the lake, or to the woods, or anywhere not on sub-level 1. The technicians working the servers were armed, which as Mendoza had found out, wasn’t unusual even for civilian server farms. The interior of the apartment was modernistic and decorated with art both on the walls and as statues on platforms, mostly impressionist, with a few classical textiles like the rugs thrown in. “Are you ready to try again today?”