Chapter 15: Deceit

The sun had barely finished rising, yet the LPD was already abuzz with activity.

Officers rushed from desk to desk, paperwork piled high, and the tension in the air was almost palpable.

In the heart of the department, inside the main meeting room, Ch'en stood before her gathered officers.

The stern yet composed Lung raised a file in one hand, her sharp gaze scanning the room as she laid out the details of the case.

"We've confirmed the identities of the victims found inside the Feilong hideout. All of them were known gang members, though their affiliations varied. What's most concerning, however, is the condition in which they were found."

A murmur ran through the room at the mention of it.

"Cocooned," Ch'en continued, flipping a page.

"Every single body wrapped in flesh-like material. And upon further examination of those removed , all of them had traces of a now-banned drug in their system. We're still waiting for toxicology reports, but initial findings suggest heavy, prolonged exposure."

She exhaled sharply, then continued.

"As for the building's surveillance footage—corrupted. Not a single usable frame. It wasn't a standard wipe either. Someone with serious expertise tampered with the security system before we even got to the scene. Which means this was planned down to the second."

She closed the file with a sharp snap.

"Assignments have been distributed. I want any leads on who orchestrated this. Follow up on known Feilong associates. Cross-check the victims' backgrounds for patterns. We need something—anything—to explain what the hell we're dealing with."

Everyone began to move towards their designed workplace.

At the back of the room, Howard sat, his posture completely at odds with the serious mood.

His stomach rested against the chair's backrest as he absentmindedly chewed on a donut, the powdered sugar dusting his fingers.

This was playing out exactly as he'd predicted. The case had been elevated to the LPD, the official investigation had begun, and, naturally, he'd been dragged into it.

His gaze wandered, scanning the room, until it landed on someone interesting.

A dark-furred feline, casually slouched near the far end of the room, arms crossed as he listened with a lazy expression.

His shaggy black hair had an almost unkempt quality to it, a few strands falling over his golden eyes.

Aak.

An underground doctor with a reputation as chaotic as his medical practices. The man was a walking contradiction—brilliant, but utterly reckless.

He was someone who could save your life just as easily as he could put a bullet in your leg to "test a theory."

Seeing Aak here could only mean one thing.

He was interested in the bodies.

Howard didn't immediately approach.

Instead, he pushed himself up from his chair and made his way to Ch'en.

"Oi, Captain," he greeted, stepping beside her.

"You look as stressed as a cat out of the bath."

Ch'en didn't even look at him. "Now is not the time, detective."

"Come on, do not be so hard on yourself; the case will not be solved like that."

Ch'en pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Is there a reason you're talking to me? Or did you just come to waste my time?"

He sobered slightly, letting the humor drop.

"Actually, yeah. You might want to hold off on conclusions until we've gathered everything. This case is more complicated than it looks."

She frowned. "What do you know?"

Howard just gave a nonchalant shrug.

"At the moment, we have very little to go on. Our only lead is a single survivor who is unable to speak, and beyond that, there's not much else to work with."

Before she could press further, he turned on his heel.

"I'll be in the waiting room when everything is ready. Remember don't work too hard, Captain."

Leaving Ch'en to her command, he made his way toward the waiting room.

***

The waiting room smelled like old coffee and fatigue.

The kind of air thick with paperwork, long hours, and caffeine-fueled desperation.

Howard sat slouched in a chair, one leg resting over the other, absentmindedly twisting a Rubik's cube between his fingers.

His mind wasn't on the puzzle—it was elsewhere, working through the real problem in front of him.

He had an idea where this was going. He had seen it before. He wasn't worried since his cover up was perfect.

A voice broke the quiet.

"They're done."

Howard didn't look up immediately. With a final flick of his wrist, the cube clicked into place—solved. He set it down on the table with a soft thunk, like punctuation on a sentence, before rolling his shoulders and pushing himself up.

"Alright. Let's get to work."

***

The room was packed. Officers filled every available space, some leaning against the walls, others shifting impatiently in their seats.

The air was thick with anticipation, mixed with something else—uncertainty. The case was already an anomaly, and they were all waiting for it to make sense.

Howard strolled in, his coat hanging lazily over his shoulders.

He threw a casual nod to the room as he made his way to the front, eyes briefly flicking to Aak, who was posted in the back, arms folded, looking thoroughly unbothered by the whole affair.

Not surprising.

Howard grabbed a whiteboard and, with a loud scrape, pulled it into position. With the marker in his hand, he turned to the group.

"Alright, let's put our dear case into perspective we can undertstand."

He scrawled across the board in quick, deliberate strokes.

• Rising gang members found dead.

• Bodies encased in flesh-like blood cocoons.

• Autopsy confirms death by suffocation.

• Traces of a banned substance found in their systems.

Howard turned back, tapping the board with the marker.

"Now, I'm gonna ask the obvious question, and I want you to really think about it."

He gestured vaguely at the notes.

"What the hell happened to these guys? Not just the 'they suffocated' part—we get that. I mean, what exactly killed them?"

Silence.

Some officers exchanged glances. Others flipped through their notes, as if the answer would conveniently appear. It didn't.

Howard sighed dramatically.

"C'mon, people, don't make me do all the work here."

He set the marker down with a click and leaned back against the desk, arms crossed.

"What could cause them to die inside? When the Cocons where opened there were no liquid or any other substance and yet on the reports here they died of asphyxiation "

Still nothing.

Then, finally, a lazy hand raised from the back.

"I got something."

Aak.

Howard gestured toward him.

"By all means, Doc. Educate us."

Aak yawned, stretching his arms before speaking.

"You ever seen someone die of pulmonary edema?"

A few officers frowned. Someone muttered, "Pulmonary what now?"

Aak smirked.

"Lungs filling up with fluid. You ever drown on dry land? You start gasping for air, but instead of breathing, all you're doing is sucking in water. Your lungs tighten up, your throat swells shut. Imagine that, except your own body is betraying you, pumping fluid straight into your respiratory system. You suffocate, slowly, drowning in yourself."

" The drug inside must have reacted to some kind of reagent causing the effects to shift from it normal functions"

The room was dead silent.

Howard blinked. Then he turned to the board and, with a completely straight face, wrote: Drowned in their own lungs because of the drug.

"Well, that's disgusting." He capped the marker.

"But useful."

He pointed back at Aak. "So you're telling the drug inside sort of hirewired and caused their deaths , hence leading to death by asphyxiation ?"

Aak nodded.

"Sounds about right. Neurotoxins can do all sorts of nasty things. It's only probable that any outside stimulant can cause that."

" As far as I know the drug found inside them [Utopia] should not react like this"

Howard let out a low whistle.

"Great. So not only do we have a bunch of corpses wrapped up like leftovers, but they choked to death from the inside out due to a drug."

He exhaled, rolling his shoulders

"Alright. Let's move on to the next big question—who could pull this off?"

Another silence. Then, a hesitant voice.

"Sarkaz?"

Howard snapped his fingers, pointing toward the officer who answered.

"Bingo."

He turned back to the board, writing in bold letters: Sarkaz.

"Now, before we all jump to conclusions and start raiding Sarkaz neighborhoods, let's narrow it down a bit." He tapped the marker against his chin, pacing slightly. "The Sarkaz have a lot of, let's say… colorful Originium arts for killing people, but this? This is something else."

He circled the word, then added another line beneath it: Vampire.

Ch'en, who had been silently listening until now, frowned.

"A Sarkaz Vampire?"

Howard nodded, spinning the marker in his fingers.

"Think about it. The closest thing we have to this kind of suffocating, flesh-altering, cocoon-wrapping nightmare is them. The vampire branch of the Sarkaz have always been known for their manipulation of blood and flesh through Arts. Who else has an originium arts that can pull off something this… theatrical?"

Most of the room still looked skeptical. Howard couldn't blame them.

It wasn't every day you suggested that a walking, talking legend of the underworld was responsible for a pile of dead gang members.

"But there's a problem," Howard continued, tossing the marker onto the desk and leaning against it. "

As far as we know, Lungmen has a strict registry. All citizen Sarkaz who enter should be accounted for. So if a vampire did this, why the hell couldn't we find them despite having the DNA sample ?"

He let the silence settle.

Then he raised a finger.

"Unless they weren't registered at all. There is 2 ways that can happen one is their an infected."

Ch'en's frown deepened. "An infected did this? "

"Not at all." Howard gestured toward her.

"We have thousands of infected who aren't registration so it would make sense from their , but our autopsy reports show none of the victims have not contracted Oripathy. That means whoever did this wasn't some desperate infected hiding from the system—it was a third party.

"Someone skilled, someone careful, someone completely off the grid."

The weight of his words settled over the room.

The officers had been expecting a case of inter-gang violence, a messy street war, or maybe even a rogue Sarkaz being the culrpit .

But this? This was different.

Howard pushed off the desk, grabbing his coat from the back of the chair.

"And that brings us to our last lead."

He adjusted the scarf around his neck. "The one person who called LPD for help."

A quiet murmur spread through the room.

"He is our only lead to the the person behind this ," Howard replied, adjusting his sleeves.

"Heixian, He was injured by our target and barely survived, but he should have seen enough to make a rough sketch of them."

With that, he turned on his heel and headed for the door, tossing a lazy wave over his shoulder.

" Let's get done with this"