L*st and Death

The worry that she might have to take care of a schizophrenic patient for life proved groundless—Anna was able to contact Andy Leclair’s guardians with surprising ease. It was thanks to hours of grueling questioning, where her patience and endurance were tested, that she finally managed to get Andy to reveal his parents’ names. By bribing her colleague Lia with another pair of earrings, she obtained the Leclair couple’s contact information from the missing persons database.

But the rest of the “Find Andy Leclair’s Guardians” mission, which she had expected to proceed smoothly, didn’t. The problem was distance. Andy’s parents lived in Portland, Oregon—more than seven hours away by plane, not counting layovers.

Due to the couple’s circumstances, Anna would have to keep Andy for three days until they could fly to Helsota. The problem was how to keep a schizophrenic man safe for that long. If she was careless with supervision, Andy might escape the house, wander the streets of Baggers City, and fall back into Hybris’s grasp.

Andy spent the first day in the panic room. But after being locked in a sealed space, he began to self-harm and fainted, forcing Anna to move him into the living quarters. Thankfully, Andy was mostly quiet when left alone—he didn’t make much trouble. Thus, the three-day weekend passed, and Monday arrived.

“Ethics training until eleven, lunch with the Leclairs at Acre Airport at one, and then...”

Shadowing Chief Shawn Ponce.

Anna muttered her plan calmly as she drove past the police headquarters. Today she would receive psychological counseling at Baggers City Central Police Headquarters, then hand Andy over to his parents at the airport, and afterward tail the police chief.

She turned her steering wheel into a civilian parking tower one block away from headquarters. Parking inside the official lot would have logged her license plate into the police database, so she deliberately avoided it.

The car she was driving was Baekgyeong’s. She had repaired the torn, dangling bumper and made it nearly new again, using it in place of her own car. This minimized traces on both the internal police network and external surveillance. Officially, she wasn’t the owner, and there was no recorded link between her and the vehicle.

“No good spots left.”

Anna muttered irritably as she circled the parking tower.

“There! At the end—on the right, on the right!”

Andy, who had been looking around with her, pointed out a space and helped her park.

“I’ll be back in an hour or two. Don’t take a single step outside the car.”

“Yeah, I know. Otherwise my brainwaves will get controlled through the Wi-Fi.”

“...Right. Just wait quietly.”

Andy, who had been force-fed unknown drugs on the island, believed that alien signals triggered his rut through radio waves. At Anna’s stern warning, he nodded with a solemn face. But his look did nothing to reassure her.

Stepping outside, she pressed the smart key several times to confirm the car was locked. Baekgyeong’s luxury sedan had a double-lock system that couldn’t be opened from the inside, so escape was impossible.

Anna sighed as she stood before the Central Police Headquarters. Far larger than Linhart Police Station, this was the core of Helsota’s police force. Officially named “Baggers City Central Police Headquarters,” it was simply called “headquarters” among officers. She had once headbutted Chief Ponce in the face—a historic insubordination at Linhart—and paid for it with two weeks of suspension and mandatory retraining at headquarters.

Unlike the relatively free atmosphere of Linhart, headquarters exuded a stiff air of rules and procedures. As she passed through the entrance, banners hung in the lobby: “Responsibility and Trust,” “Police Who Uphold Ethics and Discipline.” Anna gave them a quick glance and scoffed.

“Responsibility and trust, my ass. Corruption and betrayal fits better. Half these bastards deserve a nosebleed.”

With her face twisted in anger, she pressed the elevator button. The doors opened, and inside stood a man.

In that instant, she scanned him. Both his ears were gone, as if torn off, leaving grotesque, uneven scars. His long black beard had been braided into three neat strands. It might have looked comical, but his predatory eyes—like those of a starving beast—gave the impression of pure menace.

And above all, the man was huge. Anna was over 180 cm tall, yet she had to crane her neck to look up at him. Like Lewis or Baekgyeong, but even larger—his entire frame was muscular, as if he did nothing but train all day.

“Not getting in?”

Snapped out of her daze by his crooked question, Anna quickly stepped in and pressed the third floor for the training center. His destination was the fourth floor—where the police commissioner and senior command offices were located. Exiting at her floor, she saw the panel light change to 4.

“...An alpha?”

Plenty of cops were tall, but towering past 190 cm was rare. On top of that, his face stirred a strange familiarity she couldn’t place.

Carrying that uneasy feeling, Anna entered the classroom. Inside, officers who had been suspended or docked pay sat unwillingly. Some had already dozed off.

“Attendance check,” the middle-aged instructor in a suit called out. When her name came, Anna raised her hand listlessly.

“Today’s lecture will be ‘Police Ethics and Professional Responsibility.’”

Sighs rose from all corners. Anna tuned out his words.

“Some of you used violence against colleagues. Some received complaints for inappropriate behavior. Some were punished for unnecessary force against citizens.”

A few nodded. Others looked indifferent.

Nobody else had smashed their chief’s nose.

Anna leaned back, smirking inwardly.

The chief definitely knew something about Lewis. Even if the hurricane had wrecked the city, the complete disappearance of Lewis’s trail was too suspicious. Grinding her teeth, she pictured Ponce’s spotless face.

Shadowing won’t cut it. I’ll have to squeeze it out of him.

After losing her mother and father, she couldn’t lose Lewis too. They had stripped her of everything and left her alive only to mock her. Robbed her of the right to be a real cop, left her crippled in a backwater station.

When the lecture ended, she rose at once. Before going after the chief, she had to deal with Andy Leclair—get him back to his parents.

Skipping the elevator, she rushed down the stairs and froze. In the lobby, she spotted the same bearded, earless man—this time with the police commissioner.

Finally, she realized the familiarity. The man looked exactly like Angus Stone, commissioner of Baggers City Police.

Could the commissioner’s son be an alpha?

Confused, she trailed after them quickly. They strode out the revolving door without hesitation. The midday sun blazed, shimmering heat rising from the asphalt. Cutting out through the side exit, Anna searched for them.

But instead, she saw a very different scene. In the corner garden beside the main building, Andy Leclair was crouched on the ground.

“What the—how did you get out?”

He was staring at the outdoor lot, terrified. Anna wavered. Follow the commissioner, or secure Andy? Her gut pulled toward the commissioner, but she couldn’t abandon Andy. She turned toward him.

“Shit! What are you doing out here? How did you—!”

Andy was trembling violently, teeth chattering like he was freezing, body hunched. Terrified, he even wet himself on the spot.

“What happened? What did you see?”

“An alien’s al-alliance.”

“What?”

“I—I saw the a-agent. The mangrove tree at the end times is humanity’s last defense. The aliens p-planted primitive desire in him. Millions will connect, raping each other. The earth is already surrounded.”

His voice cracked like a child about to cry. Alarmed, Anna forced him up.

“Come on. Back to the car.”

Thankfully, Andy obeyed. Returning to the tower, Anna nearly fainted when she saw Baekgyeong’s car was unlocked. The cause dawned on her—there was a spare key in the dashboard.

“Perfect.”

She gave Andy a change of civilian pants she had prepared, bundled his soiled clothes together, and opened the trunk. That’s when she noticed something stained with blood.

“...A frying pan?”

Inside lay a bent frying pan, a blood-smeared waterproof apron, and wads of bloody tissues.

“What the hell was he doing?”

Anna had been about to curse Baekgyeong, but remembering he’d been stabbed and left in critical condition, her face stiffened. Tossing Andy’s clothes into the trunk, she pushed the trembling man into the passenger seat.

“That so-called alien agent you saw—”

At once Andy began rocking back and forth.

“Was it the guy with the fancy beard? The one without ears?”

“Hhff.”

“You saw him on the island?”

Sweating, anxious, Andy didn’t answer right away. At last, after glancing around, he steadied his breath.

“Even if you escape the island, it’s useless. The agent comes running too. Then you just scream to the universe for help. Cock-a-doodle-doo! That’s how they mock you.”

“You saw that earless man on the island?”

“Yes. The island. We moved to the station by cable car. Then the doctor cut the cable.”

His babbling was incoherent, rocking nonstop. He hadn’t been this bad when she left him in the car earlier. Something had shaken him badly while she was in the lecture. And Anna was sure of the cause.

The earless man. It had to be him.

If Andy recognized him, then the man might also recognize Andy. For now, Andy seemed to be the only one who noticed, but if they met face to face, things could turn ugly.

Anna adjusted her afternoon plans. Forget shadowing the chief. Forget squeezing him. From today, the one she had to dig into was Angus Stone, commissioner of police.

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