Insight Through Inquiry

Off The Grid.

+ @athena

Spare-framed, tired, with a listlessness all their own. This did the man perceive, as he slid in front of the woman with all the pomp and circumstance of a man well past his expiration date. Hours of writing nothing but tedious reports and dossiers had made themselves evident in the crease of his brow, the bags under his eyes, and combined with an angular visage did the detective seem more corpse than man. And between the long nights spent at a desk, mindlessly writing briefings and debriefings, constantly re-examining the criminal database, it was enough to make him crave field work. There was something about the thrill of a stakeout, the 10% of a job where 90% of it was spent waiting for something to happen, that seemed ever more appealing with the presence of sheafs upon sheafs of factual, dry text. Just as there was something about going out to a marketplace and embarking on a culinary expedition, that seemed to breathe new life into Mason Oliver Hollis.

Just as there was something about casing a possible 010, after all.

"I'll take you up on that offer, then."

A smile as worn and tired as his coat did he direct toward the woman, and a little of the Americano did he sip, followed by a tentative nibble on perfectly soft bread. The gloomy Seattle weather didn't seem quite as bad this time around; through glass canopies did rays of light stream, and the usual hustle and bustle of the marketplace was a surefire litmus test as to how things appeared to be. Whether all was well, or not.

And amid the gaggles of tourists taking photos at the "Original Starbucks Reserve", the fishmongers and apiarists and florists and butchers loudly selling their wares, something was off. Pike's Place was many things; loud perhaps, crowded perhaps. Crimes happened here perhaps, but for the most part they'd been incidents of petty thievery, misdemeanors such as pickpocketing and petty vandalism, easily handled and resolved by the local precinct. Until now.

It had been a mere footnote on a report from Ravenhurst, eyewitness testimony with fragments of evidence, but not enough to paint a picture. A body propped in the corner of a stall in the public bathroom, discovered by a sanitation worker in the dead of the night. CSI was still running results in the lab, the patrol officers on duty had seen a needle, put two and two together, and called it a day. But not everything was as open and shut as it seemed. Perhaps that was why he was here, a detective scratching that nagging itch that lurked in the corner of his mind. That ate away at his conscience, that whispered in his ear as he slept.

As an old friend had called it, a Tianshi.

A moment's rumination turned into several minutes of awkward silence, and after zoning out once more did Mason return to reality. Damn. The Americano was cold, the Piroshky no longer piping hot. And across from him, the woman whom he had shared this table with, clearly exasperated and tired. A kindred spirit perhaps?

"Long day, huh?"

Small talk was certainly not his forte.