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Chapter 3: A Bleeding Edge Break-In

The tale continues!

On the production front, things are progress nicely. I have Chapter 4 mostly finished, and I’ve sent Chapter 5 to some friends to read over and provide feedback.

I write slower than I would like, but I am putting in the work. Chapter 6 is in the early stages, so we shall see how long that takes me.

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The two planeswalkers, mercenary and detective, had no trouble locating Kata Corp’s section of the building. They were guided first by the signs leading out of the entrance hall, and afterward by the gauche, excessive corporate iconography of Foundation’s West Wing,

Noxie assumed that whoever designed their logo, a katana with the words “Kata Corp” etched into the blade’s hamon with a calligraphic style, must have thought themselves clever. The people who positioned the logos such that the blade of the katana pointed directly to their offices must have believed themselves doubly clever.

No. Not now.

She stopped herself, realizing her thoughts were about to spiral into “loud thinking,” as Enigma kept calling it. From the brief time their lives had intersected, she didn’t believe the wolf would judge her too harshly for her innermost thoughts. And yet, the last thing she wanted to do was dump a lifetime of cultural misappropriation and discrimination onto his lap. It’s not like any of it was relevant to their job here.

When the sterile white of the entrance hall gave way to Kata Corp’s signature shade of ruby red, the rat deigned to look back. Even in the silence of the corridor, Enigma’s footsteps were so soft that they were barely audible, and Noxie needed the visual just to be sure he was still there. Fortunately, he was trailing close behind her.

Unfortunately, he was staring right at her, rather than the offices they were about to break into.

Shit. Did he hear my thoughts!?

Before this could escalate any further, Enigma raised one of hands, palm outward, motioning for Noxie to stop.

A weary sigh escaped his muzzle, “While I appreciate the thoughtfulness, all you’re doing is making it easier and easier for me to read your mind. It is both healthier for you and less cacophonous for me if you let the thoughts pass, and then move on.”

The insides of Noxie’s ear began to glow bright pink. “How much did you-”

“Oh look! We’re here! Kata Corp offices! Perhaps we can focus on that, instead!” He spoke firmly, redirecting the rat’s attention to their shared objective. They were deposited by the corridor into another atrium, albeit smaller than the entrance hall. A skylight illuminated three compact, cramped floors worth of office space.

Even with all of these people hunkered down in their own cubicles, Noxie assumed one of them would have given two conspicuously dressed strangers the side-eye. And yet, as an armadillo scurried past them into one of the conference rooms, he paid the two planeswalkers no notice.

Enigma broke the silence, “The entrance hall was simply soulless, but this place is different. It is claustrophobic despite being large, well-lit, and also soulless.”

Another person, this time a bear, once again darted right by them without looking their way. Noxie was baffled by it. “Why aren’t they doing anything to us? And why are you so calm!?”

“Because we’re invisible, and because we’re invisible.” The mind mage in mercenary’s clothing spoke with a flat affect, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“But I can see you just fine.”

“It would be inconvenient if you couldn’t see or hear me, Miss Noxie.”

Her mouth opened for just a moment, as if to ask a question, before thinking better of it. The explanation could wait. Right now, they had to focus.

“Alright. Fine. That deals with the suits, but what about the cameras?” Noxie began to scan the room before Enigma interrupted her again.

“I’ve never seen any building use ‘cameras’, as you call them, so extensively, but I have seen them used before. In my experience, they tend to face out more often than they face in. Now that we’re inside, it is unlikely we’re being surveilled. That does still leave one problem though.”

“What?” The rat surprised herself at just how quickly she started to accept this casual magical display.

“It would be conspicuous if items started moving on their own, as it would look to outside observers once we start investigating. We will need to procure disguises if we want to proceed.”

“Disguises?” Noxie scanned once more, this time with direction and focus, until she found what she was looking for. “There. Let’s try there.” She pointed to a door off to the side, and motioned for Enigma to follow. Upon closer inspection, he noticed that it had the word “Janitor” emblazoned on it.

“Janitor? What is that?” Though puzzled, Enigma followed Noxie through the threshold, into what looked to him like a combination of a cleaning closet and locker room. “Some form of servant’s quarters?”

“Eh. Close enough. A janitor is the guy that keeps the place clean and fixes stuff when it breaks.” With no one else in sight, Noxie headed straight for the back of the room, where she found exactly what she was looking for. “Aha! Found’em! Here! Catch!”

As the object hurled towards him, Enigma could tell it was some form of one-piece outfit. After snatching it out of the air, and giving it a quick inspection, he noticed that the thick material was nonetheless roomy enough to completely engulf him, even while wearing the mercenary gear Noxie gave him. “Is this some kind of uniform?”

“They’re coveralls, Enigma. Cleaning crew wear these over their clothes to keep them clean while they do their work.” She was already zipping up her suit while she spoke.

“And you knew there would be two pristine suits in here?” He couldn’t keep the skepticism out of his voice even while unzipping the jumpsuit.

“They make’em in bulk. I’ve broken into more than a few offices like this before. There’s always a few spares, and they’re always one-size-fits-all. Now hurry up and put it on.”

Enigma dutifully obeyed. Though the outfit was loose, it nonetheless covered-all of his street clothes. Once he put on the hat that went with it, his transformation was nearly complete. Looking into a nearby mirror, he ran a paw, glowing with magical energies, down his face, dimming his mark of mastery, the glowing tattoo underneath his left eye, until it was so faint it was hard to spot.

Turning to face Noxie, he noticed that the piercing on her eyebrow, and the ring on her nose, were gone. She couldn’t position the hat to completely disguise the electric blue shock of her mohawk, but she obscured enough of her features to make it hard to identify her.

“Nice trick, Enigma.”

“Likewise, Miss Noxie.” He gave a professional bow as an extension of his compliment. “And if you’re right about these uniforms, that should buy us the plausibility we need to continue our investigation.”

“Speakin’ of. What are we lookin’ for exactly?”

Looking around the room, Enigma spied a map of the Kata Corp offices hanging next to a corkboard with notices to the cleaning staff pinned all over it. “Our first order of business is to determine the exact area where the bombing attempt took place. From there, we look for evidence that the first team missed on their inspection.”

“Oh, c’mon. Enigma, you don’t seriously expect to march in there and just find the bomb laying around, do you?” Noxie gave her foreign partner a skeptical, ponderous raise of her eyebrow.

He dismissed her doubts with a simple nod. “Were we only that lucky. No. Even a novice sleuth would have taken the weapon as evidence. Still, I find it difficult to believe that they found every clue worth uncovering in a single day of inquiry. Any leads they missed will be to our benefit.”

“Not much of a plan, ‘Detective’.” Internally, she cursed herself almost as soon as the words escaped her lips. What was meant to be a playful jest sounded cold even to her own ears.

Though if Enigma was offended, he did not show it. Noxie wondered briefly if it was because he could read her intent, or if he was just used to people treating him like that.

He chose to focus his reply on the content of her remark, rather than the tone.

“You aren’t wrong. We are working on limited information. Thus, the amount we can plan is limited, at least for now. That said-” The wolf reached for a notice on the bulletin board, tearing it off the tack keeping it held in place. Noxie watched him hold it up to the map, eyes drifting between the two documents. His lips formed into a smile. “We appear to be in luck. The staff were ordered to keep one of the ‘conference rooms’ on the floor above this one closed until further notice, effective yesterday. What are the odds that’s the same room where our little incident took place?”

“I get ya. There’s no way that’s a coincidence. Let’s check it out.”

By the time she got to the door, Enigma was graciously holding it open for her.

“After you, Miss Noxie.”

Armed with bright yellow gloves and utility belts stuffed with cleaning supplies, the two ‘janitors’ didn’t take long to locate the sealed room. Even if they didn’t already know which one they were looking for, they could easily tell it apart since it was the only conference room the otherwise freeform flow of office traffic was avoiding. Additionally, it was easily the largest suite on the floor, and the only one with walls rather than glass windows separating it from the rest of the office.

Nobody paid either of them any mind as they approached, not even the stout little skunk that passed by the duo on the way to his lunch break. Enigma tested the handle, unsurprised to find that it wouldn’t turn. Without saying a word, Noxie knelt down in front of it. Recognizing the lockpicks in her hands, the mage positioned himself so that no one had line of sight to what they were doing. It was a needless gesture, as most were too absorbed, either in their work or in the avoidance of it, to take notice, but he kept watch all the same.

Noxie only took a mere few seconds to jimmy open the door, but it felt like minutes to the both of them. They each drew the spray bottles and washcloths from their hips, as if to clean and sanitize the chamber before them. In a sense, that is exactly what they intended to do.

Once inside, they closed the door behind them, locking it back up. With the coast clear, they were able to truly take in their surroundings, both of them shocked by the sheer size of it.

“This is a bit excessive for a conference room. I’ve taught in lecture halls smaller than this. And our smallest is still sized to accommodate a few dozen students.”

Natural light poured in from the windows high up along the side and back of the room, but despite that the podium at the center was still mostly shrouded in shadow just dark enough to keep the glare out of a would-be presenter’s eyes. The more he thought about it, the more Enigma realized this conference room resembled one of the lecture halls or amphitheaters from back home in other ways as well, given the arrangement of the space.

Sure enough, as he looked overhead, he found a device similar to the illusion projectors he used back home. Other teachers, less versed in the arts of magical projections, needed mechanical interfaces to make use of them in their lectures. But as a trueborn illusionist-extraordinaire, Enigma could rely simply on his spellcraft to activate such machines. Having such a practical application of magic at the ready always made his talks on the subject all the more engaging.

With a palm raised to the device, he channeled his powers into it, knowing that it would show them the last thing that it displayed to its audience.

At least, that was his assumption. In reality, nothing happened whatsoever.

Noxie couldn’t help herself, trying and failing to suppress a chuckle. “What are you doing?”

“I’m trying to activate that device up there. I’ve never had trouble doing so before.” He gave it one more trying, channeling mana into the device, yet it nonetheless remained dormant.

“You trying to use magic on it, or something?” She slowly sat down on one of the desks, testing to see if it would support her weight. Once she realized it would, her body allowed itself to relax.

“Of course. Projectors work off of illusion magic, my specialty. It should respond to the same color of mana that I channel to use my powers.” His third attempt was half-hearted at best. Though he knew it was likely a fool’s errand, his own pride would not allow him to admit that a rudimentary machine could get the better of him.

The empathetic side to Noxie, that understood why Enigma kept trying, and the pragmatic side of her, that wanted to just move on, were in perfect agreement. She needed to explain why this wasn’t going to work.

“Mages and magic are the stuff of legends here, Enigma. There are a few famous ones, but most of us go our whole lives without seeing or knowing one in person. They’re ‘too important’ to mingle with the rest of us. They aren’t wasting their time powering shit like this, so I bet it isn’t even designed for what you’re trying.”

“Are… are you trying to say your technology isn’t fueled by mana?”

As resourceful as the wolf was, Noxie was starting to get used to the dumbfounded look on his face whenever the culture shock hit him.

“If there’s a way to power stuff with magic, no one I know has ever seen it before. I think our power comes from a bunch of different stuff, but it usually gets fed through outlets to whatever we need it for.”

“Outlet? You buy energy from a store?”

Noxie wasn’t sure what ran through his head as he flashed a quizzical expression her way, but it clearly wasn’t the image she was trying to convey. She inspected the edges of the room from her vantage point, and breathed a sigh of relief when she found what she was looking for behind the podium Enigma stood next to.

Getting up off the desk, she strolled up to the power outlet on the side of the room, presenting it to the detective working alongside her. “No, Enigma. This is an outlet. Most of our tech has a cord attached to it that plugs into those holes there. Once it’s connected, it can draw electricity from our power grid, and then you can use it. Like that cord coming out of the projector.” She traced the path of the cord with a finger, secured to the ceiling, coming down one of the walls to lead to a plug on the ground, next to another outlet at the back of the room, beyond the seats in the back row.

“Fascinating. I have never known a plane in the multiverse where the arcane arts aren’t widely practiced, in all my travels.” Following her finger, Enigma spotted the plug. Following Noxie’s directions, he squatted down to insert it into the nearby outlet, looking back up to the projection. “It’s still not on?”

“There’s probably a switch or something, but enough of that, Old Man. We’re looking for evidence, remember!?” While there was a part of Noxie that wanted to learn about what the rest of the multiverse was like, they had a mystery to solve. This detour wasn’t getting them anywhere closer.

“I’m sorry. You’re right. I’ve let my curiosity get the better of me. Still, in my experience, people don’t close off rooms like this without good reason. The question is why.”

From his vantage point in the back row of the room, he could see that the light from the windows gave him a much clearer view of the space. His eyes narrowed onto an oddity that he had missed before. “Miss Noxie. Can you pull up the projector screen?”

“Enough with the damn projector, Enigma! Focus!” She stomped her foot as she spoke. Later, when she had time to reflect, she would grow grateful that the jumpsuit’s padding muffled the sound.

“There’s something odd about the way the light is hitting that screen from up here. It almost looks like there’s a hidden compartment behind it.” Like the hawk avians who helped him teach his apprentice how to fly, his eyes locked onto his quarry.

“Hidden- You serious!?” Looking from her point of view, all she could see was a featureless void where she assumed some slide show presentation was supposed to be, but she had learned by now that the wolf wasn’t one to lie. Looking around, she saw a few buttons on the side of the projector screen, and used them to fold it up.

Sure enough, the detective was vindicated once again. Though the screen made it appear as if there was nothing behind it but a wall, in truth there was an opening, large enough for Noxie to comfortably slip through to a surprisingly spacious room on the other side. In the back of her mind, she could almost picture some of the regulars at her parents’ sushi bar having one of their backroom poker games in a room like this, just large enough for a table and chairs. Just hidden away enough to keep concealed when the fuzz was looking to crackdown on illegal low stakes gambling. It was too dark to see in any detail, but a few lamps could fix that.

As soon as her vision was beginning to adjust to the hidden chamber’s darkness, a dim blue light crept its way in from behind her, and over her head. Looking up to its source, she saw a cerulean orb floating idly above the rest of the room, glowing just bright enough to dispel the shadows around her. Though brilliant in comparison to the blackness it displaced, the orb’s gentle radiance did nothing to strain her eyes.

As if to banish her questions as well as he banished the shadows, Enigma spoke unprompted when he trailed in. “Mage Light. A simple spell, but one that works wonders for the daring adventurer, or the intrepid sleuth.” He allowed himself a moment to smile. “I would be a poor illusionist indeed if I couldn’t produce a light when I need to.”

“Think you can teach me that?” For just a moment, Noxie allowed herself to drop her guard, amazed at what Enigma was capable of.

“It depends on what type of magic you align with, but most likely as it’s a novice-level spell. That said, were you not the one who chastised me for losing focus on our investigation.” The detective let out a chuckle at his own remark.

“Touche, Old Man. Should be easier to look around with some- What the fuck?” She couldn’t see it before, but with Enigma’s light the duffel bag tucked into the corner of the room was clear as day. Bringing herself down to the ground with a deep squat, she took a look inside. “Holy shit!”

Honing in on the concern writ plain into Noxie’s voice, the detective approached. “What did you find?”

“Explosives, Enigma! A bunch of ’em. Enough to blow a hole right through the building.”

Looking to confirm Noxie’s claim, he peered into the bag, where he saw several bricks, formed out a gray putty, attached to a device he wasn’t familiar with.

“These bricks are explosives?” He asked curiously.

“Yeah. The kind professionals use. It’ll only go off when the thing attached to it counts down to zero.”

Squatting down next to her, he gazed pensively at the device. “That doesn’t make sense. Why is the case closed when the investigators in charge never recovered the bomb? I’ll be honest with you, Miss Noxie. I expected to find some form of evidence, but I did not expect to find the actual bomb here.” He leaned away from the bag, his attention fixated on something else Noxie couldn’t see.

“What’re you lookin’ at, Enigma?”

He pulled out the ‘phone’ that Noxie remembered from the sushi lunch earlier that day, pointing it directly at his focus. “A tooth. Looks like a rat’s front tooth, and some dried blood.” He stood up and stepped back, sweeping the entire room with his ‘phone’, recording as much as he could about the hidden chamber. “In fact, there are other signs of a struggle. There’s not much blood, but there were multiple people in this room, and they fought.”

Following Enigma’s eyes, Noxie was able to see it too. There were scuff marks on the wall next to the duffel bag, laced with light trails of blood. It made her think of all the roughhousing she used to do with the other neighborhood kids, before the rest of them grew up into Rail Tails. She remembered the way her mother nursed her scrapes and bruises. It was what finally convinced the retired mercenary to give into her daughter’s demands and teach her how to box.

“Yeah. Looks like someone got roughed up, but they would’ve walked away from it.”

His ears perked up at the suggestion. The look he gave her could not contain his surprise. “I… agree with that assessment. Though I would posit whoever won this altercation likely detained the other. It seems unlikely that they would just let the loser walk away.”

“What? I’m not a dumbass, you know!” She puffed out her cheeks indignantly, and Enigma held out both hands as if to console her.

“Sorry. It’s just that Edmund, my apprentice, is the only other person who interjects like that when we’re working a case together.” His ears receded in apology. “You resembled him for a moment, and it caught me off guard. I meant nothing by it.”

It was enough to calm her down. “I guess I believe you. Most people’d be too stressed if they needed your help like this.”

Enigma placed the ‘phone’ in his possession back into his pocket, replacing it with a vial and a pair of tweezers. Using the tool, he gingerly plucked the tooth off the ground, placing it in the vial and sealing it with a cork with a deep sigh. “I’m the best at what I do, and that means people turn to me when they have nowhere else to go. I’m used to it.”

Just then, the exit was abruptly closed shut, sealed with a wall of steel. A feminine voice spoke to the two of them from somewhere the mage’s magic could not reach nor detect. “I don’t know who you people are, but you’ve poked around quite enough.”

Noxie was the first to respond. “And who the fuck are you!?”

A haughty laugh filled the room. “The last person you’ll ever hear. We paid too much to bury this investigation to let some worthless mercs get caught on camera drudging it all back up.”

Silence followed, both of them listening for whatever the mysterious voice was going to threaten them with. It lingered for several moments, until…

Beep.

Beep.

Beep.

It came from the direction of the duffel bag, and Noxie knew immediately what was happening. “Shit. They set off the bomb. Guess we screwed up whatever plans they had for it.” Scrambling towards the bag, she looked at the timer on the detonator. “We have 10 minutes until this thing blows!”

Where anyone else might be panicking, Enigma simply stood still, pensively stroking the underside of his snout with the knuckles of his hand.

Noxie did not have the time nor patience for it. “ENIGMA!”

“Miss Noxie. Please take a deep breath. I was just deciding what we should do with the bomb, and I regret to conclude that we cannot salvage it.”

“What are you talking about, Old Man! We’re going to die if we don’t do something!” She fumbled with the bag, uncertain what to do. Her heart powerfully thumped out of her chest as the adrenaline coursed through her system, tail erratically and uncontrollably swishing.

Seeing his partner’s distress, Enigma placed a firm, confident palm on her shoulder. “Listen to me. It’s not safe for us to be here anymore. We’ll be captured if we stay. Nor is it safe for us to leave that bomb there. Who knows how many people it could kill when it explodes. I want you to follow me, just as I followed you.”

“I’m not in the mood for riddles, Enigma!”

“It’s not a riddle. You’ll understand in just a few moments. Just remember: Follow me.”

“Eni- Fucking fine. I trust you.” As if commanded by her own words, Noxie could feel her heart start to calm down, and her breathing steady.

With several minutes still left on the clock, Enigma picked up the entire duffel bag, cradling it in his arms, and disappeared in a trail of brilliant blue light.

In his absence, the voice from before chimed in. “Where the hell did he go!? Guards! Guards, search the room!”

Hearing the door to the conference room outside get smashed open, Noxie realized what Enigma meant.

“You fangfaced dick! You let me panic like that!”

And like him, she vanished. The trail of dark crimson red contrasted with the bright cerulean blue of Enigma.

Hurling through seemingly endless space, Noxie locked onto the wake of the detective’s planeswalk, following in his path until she found his destination. It was a sensation she was still in the process of adjusting to, but the clarity of her purpose broke though any awe she might have had at the vast multiverse unfurling before her.

When she rematerialized on the other end, this time she landed on her hands and knees. The wooden floors beneath her absorbed the shock of her fall, and she was able to pick herself up with little more than  a few scrapes: Nothing she couldn’t push through.

If she had to describe the apartment she landed in, it looked like the backroom of a renaissance faire. Modern furnishings like metal cabinets, a comfortable-looking couch, and a polished, wooden dining table gave her brain something familiar to latch onto. Another device, similar to the projector from the conference room, was pointed past the couches and table of the living area, towards an otherwise plain, off-white wall.

These contemporary furnishings were contrasted by an archaic set of bookshelves, straight out an antique store except for the fact that they were nearly untouched by the ravages of time, stuffed with books she didn’t recognize. A sword was nested in its sheath, propped up against an island in the middle of what Noxie gleamed was a cooking area in a corner of the room.

When she looked up at the lighting fixture on the ceiling, she realized she was not looking at a lightbulb. Instead, it was an orb. The same dim orb of Enigma’s Mage Light spell, except this time a soothing white, suspended in a crevice above everything else in the room. Alone, the pale, comforting illumination would not have been enough to shine through the shadows of the dark night. However, it had siblings, similarly ensconced in strategic locations across the ceiling. Together, they painted the room with gentle light.

Once Noxie had adjusted to the unusual surroundings, she saw the brown hair and grey fuzzy ears of Enigma popping out from behind the cooking island. He set a lidded dish, not much larger than the palm of his rough, padded hand, onto the island, calling out to Noxie while still obscured from her sight.

“Hungry? I always make sure to have a few quick meals prepped.”

She nodded along her reply, out of habit, “Yeah. I could eat just about anything after tha- Wait. The bomb!”

“It’s been dealt with”, he said confidently. “Any dietary restrictions?”

“No, and what do you mean ‘dealt with’.”

Noxie had no reason to doubt Enigma, not after everything they’ve been through in the past few days. Still, she couldn’t bring herself to relax until he explained himself.

Enigma, calm as ever, took another lidded container of a similar size out of whatever compartment he was digging through. When he stood up, Noxie could see the movement of his leg coincide with the sound of the door to whatever cabinet he was taking these bowls out of slamming shut. It was only then that she noticed a faint humming coming from that compartment, realizing it was some form of refrigeration unit. And yet, she couldn’t see any cords or outlets anywhere in the room.

He took pity on her when he noticed her nervous fidgeting, and launched directly into an explanation.

“I let go of the bomb while planeswalking back here. Depending on its make, it will either explode harmlessly in, or be consumed by, the vast aether of the Blinds. A pity that we’ll never know which.”

When Noxie saw Enigma reach for a set of pans, and place them on what appeared to be some form of stove, a part of her breathed a sigh of relief that despite how different their cultures were, there were commonalities between them. This feeling was temporarily interrupted as the wolf reached over to a bowl of glowing red orbs, not too dissimilar to his Mage Lights, and yet so much more compact. Taking one of them, he placed it in a receptacle along the side of the stove, breathing life and fire into the device.

Noxie watched as Enigma poured the contents of both dishes into the pans before him, warming up as the heat began to work upon them. The diced meat cubes looked gamey, like venison, although she was not sure what gave them such a vibrant purple hue. It was accompanied by orange sauce, and something similar enough to rice noodles that the young ratkin could not tell the difference despite knowing that rice didn’t exist where Enigma came from. A few sprigs of herbs and spices dotted the ensemble, alongside weirdly blue carrot-looking vegetables. Two identical portions, separated only by the pan they were being cooked in.

With Enigma stirring their meals, waiting for them to cook, she took her moment to continue questioning him.

“And where is here, exactly? What do you mean by the Blinds?”

He gave her a bemused look. “Obviously, we’re back on my home plane: Crossroads. But more specifically, this is my apartment. I’ve lived here in the staff building since the day I received my teaching license.” After a brief pause, he continued, “As for your other question, planeswalkers from long ago called the space between planes the ‘Blind Eternities’. The nomenclature persists today, but many of us call it the ‘Blinds’ for short. Would you like a glass of water to go with our food?”

“Yeah. Thanks,” she replied.

“No problem. Please, have a seat at my dining table. I’ll be around with our food and drinks in a few minutes, once this finishes cooking.”

While normally not one to wait, the promise of food and the fatigue of the day were enough to overcome any instinct Noxie might have had to keep standing, taking a seat in one of the chairs at the table.

“By all means, enjoy. You and I have earned it after all we’ve accomplished today.” He took his own advice, stabbing a few cubes of meat and slices of ‘carrots’ with his fork, and spinning them in a cocoon of pasta.

By contrast, Noxie simply scooped up her meal, replying in between bites. “Doesn’t feel like we’ve done a lot.”

He made sure to swallow what was in his mouth before he spoke. “Oh, but we have, Miss Noxie. We’ve confirmed the bomb was real, and we’ve established that the team who investigated before us either saw it and chose not to take it with them, or closed the case without establishing that the weapon was ever there. Factored in with our mysterious voice and the way they tried to kill us, it seems likely that someone is trying to cover up the truth of the matter. The question is why.”

“You really are a detective, aren’t you? Old Man.” Noxie spoke rhetorically, with no further reason to distrust the otherwise bizarre wolfkin working with her.

“One of the best in the multiverse, if not the best. I promise you that.” The pride in his voice reached all the way to his eyes.

“So where does that leave us, Enigma? What do we do next?” She turned to her new ally for guidance, both of them chipping away at their plates.

“Once we finish here, you’ll go home to your parents and go to bed. Likewise, I’ll rest here. But tomorrow, I see two potential avenues of investigation. Either we find a way to speak to the accused and listen to their testimony, or see what the other detectives found. I believe you called them InvestiGate?”

Noxie noticed that he had a way of breaking down seemingly complicated tasks into smaller, more easily manageable chunks, like some of her old teachers back in her school days.

With their next steps outlined, Noxie was able to fill in the details. “Yeah. And lucky us, if they were the ones hired to solve this, they’re probably the ones holding our guy.”

“Then perhaps we’ll have time to handle both inquiries. Speaking of, you intimated before that you knew the suspect. What can you tell me about them?”

“Nothing yet”, she replied. “The birdbrain out front said they were pale-furred, but that could be a few different people. I’ll ask some of my friends before I head to bed.”

“Alright. Then we have a plan. Is there a place I can planeswalk to without disturbing your morning routine or getting caught by your parents? I don’t wish to intrude upon any of you when I arrive tomorrow morning.”

After a moment’s thought, Noxie answered, “There’s an alley behind the bar. No one heads back there that early.”

The detective finished his glass of water. “Excellent. In that case, I’ll handle the cleanup. You stay safe until tomorrow morning, Miss Noxie.”

“You too, Old Man. And… Thanks for the meal. My parents would love it,” said Noxie.

“You’re welcome,” Enigma returned with a smile.