About an hour later, I finally made it to the precinct. The building didn’t appear to be anything special, just a large office complex with a parking unit and high tech garage to the side. A large set of bold white letters above spelled “MCPD”. A few cops out front were snacking on doughnuts and coffee on the front concrete steps. I spied the whole scene from my parked car on the street across. Before then, I drove around the block twice, scouting out the front for my boss. Being caught late with any other boss would have been a minor slap on the wrist, but with my supervisor, she had the mercy of a rottweiler. I evaluated my choices in my mind. If I would have snuck through there, my handler would catch me right off the bat. I thought about taking the garage, and that way wasn’t open either. I would have needed to use my pass to operate the thing, and it reads my credentials up at the front office.

I took a deep breath. I needed to keep my cool. I just needed to say, “I forgot to register this morning,” and that’s it. I grabbed my coffee cup and hoped she would buy the act. Hopefully she wouldn’t check the cam feeds and take my word at face value. I began to sweat nervously. I’m screwed.

I exited the car and approached the cops across the streets with a friendly smile on my face.

“Good morning, gents.” I said. As I said it, my handler walked out the door, staring fire into my soul. My smile instantly dissolved.

She was an older woman, but not by much, about mid forties. Her blonde hair was just beginning to gray. She was an old detective, like me. She still had a lot of firepower behind her and the credentials behind it. Her auburn eyes stared into my soul. Her default face, a disgruntled frown, would have been a more welcomed sight than the look of scorn she had now.

“You’re late,” she said with a stern voice that would have scarred a drill sergeant.

“I know, late case last night…” I said, alluding to the 1:00 AM last night.

She shrugged “It comes with the job, Watts, now get to work.” I carefully walked past her to the door. “One last thing,” she said, I looked back, “Scout out the building again, and so help me, it’ll be your badge.”

“Yes ma’am,” I confirmed, showing no emotion in my tone. I entered the building.

The MCPD police department was very nice. The interior was furnished and color coordinated and potted plants lined every hallway. The building was an old complex. Office spaces made up the majority of the central floor. An armory featured everything from silent infiltration to full on assault. A high grade evidence locker and a deployment garage made up the bottom floors. I went into the cubicle section, where about twenty detectives were at their workstations. I approached my office block, and my partner Joe joined me.

“Good to see you, finally,” he said as we walked.

“Traffic sucked…” I exhaled.

A noisy, balding and snarky detective with small mole eyes looked over his cubicle.

“Joe, Watts, good to see you in the light of day for once.” I turned to him and smiled.

“I could say the same, Moley” I snarked to the co-worker, he slipped away like the mole he resembled. I turned back to the massive figure that was my partner. “Have you been telling people about our talk last night?” I asked.

“Yeah, about that…. Ya can’t expect me to keep all that juicy info from Moley like that. He thrives on that stuff.” Moley peered his bald head over the cubicle wall a few blocks ahead.

“And sufficient it was. Thanks Hoolihan.” he said. We converged. Standing up, Moley was only about 4’2. He always had to look up to talk to other detectives. He was balding, blinding, and pale as the light side of the moon. He was hunched over and obese. His head held little hair, and the strands that remained were thin and greasy. You wouldn’t think much of a man like Moley, but he is one of the best analysts in all of Michigan, heck, even the in the east coast.

“So, bringing the subject away from me, what did the drones pick up last night?”

Joe shared an uneasy look with Moley. His button eyes stared back the same doubt.

“They did not pick up any recent fingerprints. Only indents of them, like everyone was wearing plastic gloves.”

“So, this is an organized effort, then.” I concluded, “How bout foot prints?”

“Shoe prints came up as blanks, like those hard heel shoes that have no tread.”

stated Joseph.

Moley picked up a notebook and came over to us.

“The print scanners came up with very little substantial data, Watts. But guessing from the weird travel marks, I requested to be emailed a data set from the initial fire drones. Their structural scanning software allows the drones to detect structural discrepancies within the target building. I looked over the data and found plenty of hidden hallways and hidden areas cloaked behind titanium walls.”

“How do you know that they’re metallic, or even titanium?” I interrupted. He blinked at me, waited a second and a half, and went on.

“Metal tends to mess with the sensors the drones used to evaluate the environment, They perceive metal as strong structural supports, such as in older buildings like the Anderson. The drones kinda skim over the internal structure unless it pick up an irregularity. We can tell that these plated areas are a specific metal from looking at their ‘prioritized materials’ list within their code. It’s basically a list of all the commonly used building materials and their heat resistance, density, structural support, and so on. Titanium is very high upon the list and reads the same if used in a similar fashion. If the Anderson House’s main support beams are made of this metal and we get exact readings of the same statistics on these intricate areas, it’s safe to assume that these little enclaves are structurally stable and can be entered.” concluded Moley.

“I suppose we need to see what’s in these little rooms ASAP, right Hollihan. Hoolihan?” I looked over to see Joe sleeping in place. I turned back towards the short man.

“I guess you were too amazing, Moley, his mind couldn’t comprehend your amazing skills.”

“Much obliged, Watts, but I know that he isn’t really sleeping.” Moley replied plainly. Immediately after those words, Joe started to snore.

We all shared a good laugh. A good pause to the seriousness. All this information equated to some very serious stuff. Organized crime syndicates operate like this. We three were facing a precipice of uncertainty.

This was very creepy info, it almost put chills down my spine. It provided depth into what was really happening at the Anderson House, and the further we went, the more suspicious the whole affair looked.