Cowboy Bebop Fan Fiction ❯ Minus Four ❯ The Mystery Begins ( Chapter 1 )

Chapter One

The mystery begins

Disclaimer: I don't own Cowboy Bebop or any of the characters. I'm just an obsessive fan who has delusions of being able to write.

**************************

A sea of cigarette smoke swam across the living room expanse of the Bebop. Ein rolled languidly on his favourite patch of floor next to the coffee table. His lungs wheezed and he whimpered amidst a hushed growl. Looking up through the thick haze he tried to see a sign in one of the familiar faces that his modest plea for attention had been observed.

He whined once again, but this time in frustration. Just as was always the case it didn't seem to be working. No one was taking a blind bit of notice. Stumbling up onto all fours, he sniffed in annoyance and disdain, sauntered out of the room and chose to find somewhere else to curl up and go to sleep.

One of these days one of them would realise, but until then he would have to patiently adhere to his now accustomed role of the ship dog, and he was satisfied that in the long run it was their loss. So much running around was just wasted energy. Smug in his superior knowledge he found a warm spot next to the large generators at the back of the ship and fell asleep.

***********************

"Can someone please tell me what is going on here?"

People rushed in throngs past the large and stern features of the confounded ISSP detective. There was activity everywhere irrespective of the blue and white police tape that had been used to corner off the crime scene. Turning to the closest living thing with a police badge he grabbed a lapel. "Tell me now! I need a full report!" he ordered.

"I'm sorry sir, but this is strictly police business…"

"Oh for Christ's sake!" he flipped his badge to show the obvious newbie he was well within his rights to ask for the information, "Is that good enough for you?"

"I'm sorry Detective Walston I didn't know it was you!" He turned back to the passenger seat of his vehicle and searched inside a briefcase of documents, "There was some sort of illegal trade taking place here last night. It looks like the three in this room were unfortunate enough to get involved with gang related business and paid the ultimate price. Nothing unusual really, it's a standard raid of this sort."

Detective John Walston looked down at the files that had been offered by the young officer, and flicked through the documents it contained, "Is that all we have on the victims?"

"I'm sorry sir but yes. None of them appeared to be bar coded and no dental records have been gathered as of yet."

"And what about the gang behind it? Have we been able to trace who claimed right to the deaths?"

The young man sweated, "No one has come forward. We couldn't find a trace of anything related to any known organisation here and that's why you've been drafted in. You know more about the differing sects than we do. We're limited to only those that are on Mars, but nothing points to this being a territorial dispute relating to this planet. We think that the lack of cataloguing of the subjects points to an Earth basis."

"I see - Well if this is the case it certainly wouldn't point to a 'standard raid' would it?" He cocked an eyebrow accusingly, "Really! The shit I get to work with! Young punks who think they know everything!"

He carried on mumbling this way as he read and extracted a stick of gum from his pocket, which he popped in his mouth and chewed on with ferocious energy.

"What about the evidence on the scene? Was anything found?"

"Take a look for yourself sir!" saluted the young man holding up the tape, "Nothing has been touched or removed from the scene. We were waiting for you to look."

Detective Walston followed the advice and dipped below the line. Pulling on a pair of plastic gloves, he opened the door and stepped inside. The circular room he found himself in was no more than eight foot in diameter. Outdated and tatty floral wallpaper lined the walls and nothing but the dark rusted grill of an air-vent broke up its garishness.

Lifting his head slightly he closed his eyes and sniffed the air. The effort almost made him gag. "Hmm?" He pondered, "That's just lovely! Ash tray and blood scented, just the sort of combination any good crime scene can't do without."

With a scientific looking swoop, he put his hands flat on the wall, tracing a line of blood splatter that contrasted with the pink border. His gloves squeaked against the surface as he leaned in closer. Shaking his head he shifted attention to the floor. Carefully stepping over a corpse he looked pointedly under the table.

As he looked his eyes caught a glint of something in the dark. "Bingo!" he exclaimed, fishing in his pocket. Extracting an evidence bag he scrapped the gunk from under the left table leg and carried on his search. A suitcase lay in ruins on the floor. The straw it seemed to be packed with had been overrun by the spilling of blood and turned a peculiar brown.

Empty bullet shells littered the floor at the back of the room and he bent down with renewed diligence as each one had to be carefully recorded and removed. One however had to remain for a more detailed extraction as it was imbedded deep within the plasterboard wall.

After the tedious work was finished he sat down on his haunches and surveyed the room. It would take a fair while for them to piece together all the information that this place had to give up. He was absolutely positive more had gone on in there than there was at first reason to believe. Nothing quite seemed to measure up. There were several different operations in existence that could have caused such destruction. The red dragon syndicate was one, but it seemed a little too controlled to be anything to do with them. It was the obvious explanation and all at once that set him on edge.

"I think someone is trying to pull the wool over our eyes here." He pondered. Maybe the young officers theory of an Earth involvement wasn't as outlandish as it had first appeared. Certainly it had to be listed as a possibility. "Yep!" he concluded out loud, "I get the feeling I'm going to be working on this one for a long time."

He sighed and scratched the top of his head, propping his glasses up with the other hand. "I guess nothing more will be decided until the bodies are examined." Standing up he called for the officer on stand by. "Tell the coroner he can come in now. I've gotten everything I need."

************************

The intoxicating spell of a flame danced deliciously over the end of Spike's cigarette as he breathed in. Having thrown the heavy lighter across the table, he scratched his head, letting the smoke work around his senses.

Staring aimlessly into the concoction Jet had delightfully described as dinner, his fork now pushed around what he presumed to be a pea. Exasperated by the triviality of the occupation, he tipped the fork delicately onto its point and made it balance perpendicular to the table.

"Ok… so now we're all here are you going to tell us what you found out?"

Jet picked up the relinquished lighter, clicking it once and inhaling, "Well if you really want to know I found Jack Shit!"

The normal drowsiness that seemed to settle over Spike was very briefly turned into a slight twisting of derision. "Sounds to me like you're losing your touch. Four days on Ganymede and you come back empty handed? That's not like you."

"I didn't say that I was empty handed now did I?" continued Jet, chuckling into his glass of vodka.

"Ooo Jet found something on Faye-Faye?" cooed Ed, as she hung under the coffee table by an obscure coordination of limbs.

Ignoring the comment Jet threw a crisp white disc file onto the desk, which Spike deposited into the laptop. A face popped up onto the screen followed by a file the size of a small planet. This guy had a history with the ISSP that spanned countless decades. His eyes sagged under folds of skin that drooped from white eyebrows. His hair and moustache were equally wrought through the hands of time and presented in a uniform flood of silver.

"Spike I'd like you to meet Jack Shit."

The oldest member of the Bebop laughed again and downed the contents of his glass.

Spike's head fell from the perch of his wrist. "Ugh! You have got to be kidding me! The poor guys really called Jack Shit? No wonder he took to a life of crime!"

"Well actually," continued Jet rubbing a hand across his eyebrows, "There's a funny story behind it. Apparently his real name was Jackovic Shiltz. He was born into a Rontesh family on earth at the time of the new rings. Having lived a very sheltered life during his early years he and his family were victimized for still believing in the old regime. The reform meant that the contention of their beliefs, although not grossly penalized, was enough to make his entire family outcasts. After having tried to remain on Mars for several years his father finally devised a plot to stow away on a cargo ship bound for Earth, where there were still many of their kind still practicing, albeit in squalor and decay."

"And…?"

"The parents were very willing but Jackovic was not. His view of the repression burnt deeper than anyone had expected and as a young teen had gotten himself involved in a group called the Grionache. They were a break away sect from all mainstream religion, who believed that the only way forward was to create one super movement that would incorporate several key belief structures. In other words it was nothing more than a hyped up cult. When his parents left he stayed and formed a resistance movement called 'The Mayeck An.' under this new section he had to find an alias. Jack Shit had been his nickname at school and so it was natural that it progressed into his underground life."

"So what has this got to do with Faye's disappearance?"

"To be honest?" replied Jet, "Not much. I went to the ISSP to see if there was anything documented on the phenomenon we witnessed. Nothing seemed to fit except the strange death of the man you see before you."

This seemed to heighten Spike's curiosity and he pulled the screen closer to get a better look at the data. He sceptically raised an eyebrow. "Looks like we missed a haul with this guy. A bounty of fifty thousand isn't prodigious, but it would have been nice spending money."

"Ain't that the truth, but it looks like someone got to him before it could be generally publicized."

Spike continued to scroll through the files, "I don't get it Jet? How exactly did he die, there's nothing untoward on the official files. Other than it being a freak accident of course."

"Yep well that's the official report." Jet got up and walked around the table to look at the screen, peering over Spike's shoulder from behind the sofa. "My sources say that things happened differently. Our friend Jack here got deep into debt with a loan shark on Mars. As you can see his expertise laid in a different course than one might expect from a religious nut. He was science mad. He worked for over nine years on a project called 'Shamontoru.' This along with other things was an underground organization of criminals and launders who were looking for any way that they could to try and convert the solar system to their way of thinking, be it with propaganda or violence. In these vast factories on the remote deserts of Titan they experimented with the most advanced engineering in weapon development."

"And this is important because?"

"You'd probably know by now if you didn't keep interrupting."

Spike sighed and stubbing out his cigarette, kicked his legs back across the sofa, reclining on folded arms. "Well I never was one for bedtime stories. Why not cut to the chase. You're not with the ISSP now. I don't need an encyclopaedic review of this creeps background."

"But I was just getting to the good part." Replied Jet with a pout.

"Fine carry on."

"Well anyway. More recently their patience paid off. They came up with an experimental prototype weapon that fired anti-gravitational beams rather than ordinary ammo. I'm not a scientist but even I can see the implications of a weapon of this type. It has the ability to warp space. Any spaceship or station that would come under its fire would be helpless with in seconds. Ring any bells?"

Jet looked down, and meeting Spikes eyes, nodded his confirmation.

"Now you're starting to catch on Spike buddy!"

"But there was nothing in range of us when Faye disappeared? How could it have fired on her without us detecting anything?"

"I'm not sure." Jet admitted, "But I have my own theory."

Spike raised a sceptical eyebrow, but was interrupted just as he was about to speak.

"Jet thinks Faye-Faye was abducted, not fired at… right!"

Ed's face seemed to appear from nowhere and had all the comic timing that left both other members of the crew blinking in incredulity.

"Right?" Ed tried again.

"Er… right!" Jet confirmed, eyeing Ed sceptically.

"Abducted?"

"Yeah think about it Spike. The creator of one of the most advanced weapons in modern history is found floating dead in space by the rings of the new planets project and then two days later we encounter an entity with the ability to warp space. Coincidence…? I doubt it."

"So the weapon was designed to capture not kill?"

"Bingo!" replied Jet, ejecting the disc from the computer and flipping it between his fingers. "Well at least that's my theory. I mean what's the use of a cult if you kill all its would-be members. But I haven't found anything concrete to confirm it yet."

"It's a good theory, but it still doesn't explain why we didn't pick anything up on our sensors. It had to be fired from somewhere."

"Well I'm guessing that the weapon wasn't designed with any specific target in mind. In which case it could be easily fired randomly from any planet or spatial colony. It wasn't after Faye, she just happened to be unlucky enough to have gotten in its way."

There was a moment of deliberation as each digested the new information. There were several looks interchanged during this silence, which ultimately ended in both nodding their agreement.

Jet was just about to go the helm and set in the silently agreed course when a voice stopped him short.

"Ed's still confused. She wants to know about the flesh eating monster!" She raised her hands dramatically, wiggling her fingers in time with the spooky echo she added to her voice.

Jet was confused. "The what…?"

"She means the creature that attacked Faye in her space pod. You didn't mention it."

"Ah…" Jet was silent for a minute, "To be honest I'm really not sure. It could have been a coincidence, but maybe it was a homing beacon or something like that."

Both looked at him in absolute incredulity.

Jet's face reddened. "Well it could!" he protested, "You come up with something better!"

"Yeah well…" Spike replied with sarcasm. "The next time I drink a whole bottle of Sake and eat some of Ed's mushrooms I'll be sure to try it."

Jet huffed his annoyance and exited leaving Spike and Ed to themselves.

"Does Spike think Faye's still alive?"

Spike ran a hand over his face rubbing the fatigue from his eyes. "Don't know." He replied at length. "Jet's right, she's nothing but trouble. I don't know why we're wasting all our resources on her anyway? It's not like she'll say thank you. Besides if she is still alive she's perfectly capable of looking after herself."

Spike turned away, but Ed continued watching him. At length she spoke. "Ed doesn't think Faye-Faye is as strong as she makes out. She doesn't say, but she needs Spike and Jet. Ed can tell."

Turning on the sofa Spike lifted his head to look at Ed. He stayed that way for several minutes, until at length he snorted some sort of apathy and dragging himself upright, walked nonchalantly out of the room.

******************************

A/N - Sorry this chapter took longer to come out than I predicted. I got caught up in other updates. See you soon for the next….

*hugs*

Ember