The Implosion

George's office was on a corner, on the second floor of the Ankara Police Department. Its windows were built long from end to end, along with the curve in the middle to accommodate the curve of the building's angle. They were tinted, so the harsh neon lights from the streets didn't affect much upon the office's interior, and his activities couldn't be seen from the outside. The office itself was plain and disorganized. There was a painting on one side of the wall, which probably left there by the Captain before George. He didn't think it looks nice, but he didn't feel it was necessary to remove it. It was just an abstract painting, thirty by thirty centimeters, shades of red parted in the middle by a golden line.

After went back to the office, George sat on his chairs. On his desk, there were two monitors, one was bigger than the other. The bigger one was for miscellaneous purposes and the smaller one acted as security monitoring. There were several buttons and switches scattered among them, only him that knew which one did what. He turned one dial on his immediate right, and the pictures on the smaller screen changing from one security footage to the next. He stopped when he got into the lab footage. He saw Adam and Hagar there, along with their respective machine partners. He then tapped the volume up button from part of his desk.

He didn't hear anything. 'The lab didn't have microphones? Or did those androids turned them off?' he wondered.

"Goddessdamn it!" he muttered under his breath. He regretted his decision of not putting his recording pen in the lab. But then again, everybody would know what it was and saw into his actions.

His personal terminal ringed. He looked into the black rectangle device's screen. No name. He knew who it was, though.

"George here," he answered after tapping on its interface.

"You have the subject under control?" A woman's voice. George was quite offended that Julian sent his crazy woman to talk to him, not Julian himself. But he let that thought slip away.

"More or less. He's in the lab now, if you want to extract him."

"There was a change of plan," Kasha said. George felt his dinner started to turn inside his belly, "we can't just 'extract' him from the police. That would be unwise for us. Besides, as you know, there were complications."

"No, I don't know," George begrudgingly stated.

"We haven't got the plates," she said.

"You mean… all that killings and you didn't have them?"

"Yes. There were other parties involved, without our knowing, and from the look of it, you didn't know it either," Kesha sounded accusing.

"Look," George sucked his breath in, "several of my people who planted at the Gallery to make sure your little… stunt to went well, died. You're the one who didn't count for the other group to crash on your macabre party. You're the one who failed on extracting Adam when he was on the crime scene. Now you're blaming me?"

There was a pause, but then Kasha continued, "well, we're sorry, you're sorry, everybody sorry. This new development requires a new set of actions…"

"I hate doing this," George said, "this was supposed to be a clean one-night job. Not prolonged."

"You have no choice, darling. You made your bed. Now you have to sleep on it. See through this to the end," she said, then added, "or… you prefer that we expose you? There's always THAT choice. We could just snatch the man from under your sorry noses to add to your, shall we say, 'colorful' reputation."

"I have a clean…" George stopped himself then looked the other way and bit his lips to prevent himself from cursing. He made fists with both of his hands and felt cold sweat on his palms, then said, "yeah okay, fine. What do you want me to do?"

"Keep him under your surveillance. Let him do his investigations. But when you have some information about the plates, report to us immediately."

"Can't you find them yourselves?"

"Oh, we tried, simultaneously. But if Adam stumbles upon them, it would be better."

"Why?"

"Too many questions, Georgie-boy," she said mockingly, "some answers could only be answered by Bel."

That name sent shivers to George's back. He couldn't believe how his life brought him here: making deals with the Devil's worshippers. But he told himself that after this, everything would be under control. He could regain his life, and everything would be back as it was.

"Alright," he said finally, and closed the connection. He looked around the room, which felt closing in on him. He needed his BE, but then he would go home. He couldn't bring himself to leave Adam and Hagar behind, or else they might go along with their investigations without updating him. He wondered, why did Julian and his band of crazy worshippers put so much interest in Adam. He wondered what Adam had to do with the goddessdamn pieces of artwork. Maybe he was an ideal sacrifice for their worship? Not that George minded that, he never fond of Adam, to begin with.

Adam was always the 'golden boy'. The man with a tragic backstory, so everybody put him on a pedestal, making his life easier than anybody else. He was almost made captain, but declined, making George took the position in his place. That left a sour taste in his mouth. George was only a captain because the handsome, tragic Adam declined the position. Furthermore, he got Hagar, the girl George loved, and he left her wounded. Cold. Whatever those Bel's worshippers intended to do to Adam, he could only hope that it was long and torturous. Maybe finally Adam could taste how it felt like to have all that he held dear taken away from him, hopefully, bit by bit.

'Or maybe,' George wondered, 'Adam's father was a part of the cult, and he was about to get the same fate as his old guy. Could this be that Hagar was in danger too?'

He could be the one who saved Hagar from becoming the collateral damage of this circus. Maybe she'd finally see that George was a better man than Adam. He could give her happiness that Adam seemed to deprive her from.

He turned his attention back to the small monitor which showed the lab. It was empty. For a moment, he felt like he was going to collapse. But he calmed himself and checked his report list. There was one under Y-14 report. 'Good, they didn't just disappear." The report said, they concluded that both crime scenes were connected. They hadn't succeeded yet in determining the Hagar's victim's DNA, because it was polluted with other minerals found at the crime scene, so tomorrow they're going to resume their investigation of the victim's identity.

No mentions of the plates, though. 'This is going to be very slow,' he thought.