For Eli

The day was dark and cold, but luckily for you there wouldn't be too much time spent outside. Detective work is usually spent in cars, or crowded bars.

You strut across the street to a seedy joint called "Five Of Spades". You know the guy who runs it, and he knows your line of work so even if your detecting gets a bit...Unruly, you're always welcomed back in. The place is the usual weekend flutter, loud voices enjoying their days off and even a few newcomers. One group is obviously underaged but hey, you're a detective not a party killer. Besides, looks like the hangover that 18 year old is gnna have will be punishment enough.

You paw at your pockets, feeling your ace in the hole safely snuggled in your right hand. If you lost this thing you'd be out of the job, so you've learned to subconciously check if it's there every now and again just to be sure. Never hurts to be careful, right? Your target walks in, as he does like clockwork every weekend at 8 PM. You've been hired to eavesdrop on him as he's the right hand man of a real sadistic piece of shit.

You only know the guy as Antonio Veris, a major crime boss respected all over the state, hell, the whole country. But others call him King Corridor, in reference to his...unusual method of killing people who get in his way. The most intel you've ever gotten about it is someone messes up REALLY BAD, and he takes them through this underground corridor and tosses them in. After that? They pop up in crack dens or in the streets, and the cops always attribute it to just plain old gang violence.

You start to realize that the right hand man, one Joseph Rigger, has started to talk in a hushed tone. Normally, you'd never hear him over the crowd but that's where the ace in the hole comes in. You pull it out of your pocket and begin to connect to it mentally. It's a small square of black foam, probably five inches by five inches, contorted and twisted into shapes that make your head hurt if you think about them too long. You call it a sound prism, and like a light prism it breaks up sound into its base components. Useful for your line of work.

You finish the mental connection, which to you always felt like fumbling around while trying to plug in a USB cord which is exacerbated the farther away from it you are, and everything becomes both less and more overwhelming at the same time.

"Regina couldn't have done that, I was with her last night!!"
"how did you make those ID's man they looked so real!!"
"Listen, if they lose another game i'm never betting on them again, swear on my mother."
"Yeah he's a creep but he's really sweet when you get down to it"
"Did yo-"
"When di-"
"How much fo-"

God, the endless gossip and none of it what you need. You guess you could equate this experience with trying to tune a radio with The Force but that'd be oversimplifying it a bit. It's more of a mental game of "Find The Cat" except you're in a dark warehouse with no flashlight, you cant feel anything and you're pretty sure the cat left an hour ago. Finally after all the frustrated tuning you lock onto your target.

"Yeah, he says there'll be a cache of the stuff in the building off 34th and Vine Ave. and he wants it left alone, says he'll be inspecting it tomorrow alone and in person. It's dumb in my opinion but hey, he's the boss, who am i to-"

And that's all you need. You sever the link with your small foam friend and head off to prepare.

When you get home, you reach under your bed to pull out your .44 magnum. You won it in a bet on a horse racing track, but then again you did know that all the gates would "malfunction" except for the newcomer Daedalus so you can't exactly call yourself lucky, you just know how to listen. Or rather what to listen for. You check to see if everything's loaded and of course it is, then you grap your baton and handcuffs. You also grab a pack of smokes and a sandwich or two, because stakeouts can last for a good while.

You arrive off 34th and Vine Ave. late Monday while everyone else heads to work, probably groggy from their late night celebrations. It takes you four more hours of waiting and watching to notice Antonio entering the building. You turn the safety off of your .44, pocket your handcuffs and head straight to him. After all, you're feeling pretty tired so you want this over and done with bef-

You didn't expect the sharp knock on the head as soon as you enter, or the unconciousness that follows. You wake up, trussed, in a dark room with a blindfold on. A dark corridor actually, if the echoes you're hearing are because of that. You unconciously paw for your sound prism and notice that its gone before a voice speaks over a loudspeaker.

"Well Detective, I see you found one of my works. You know, these were supposed to be given to people who I thought were worthy, but accidents happen. Like my good for nothing sister that scattered these everywhere, do you remember her? If I remember correctly you were assigned to her case."

You remember, thats where you found the sound prism. It was hidden away in a cupboard at the crime scene and as soon as you touched it you could hear the cops outside as if they were all talking to you individually. You kept it, of course, but right now that may have been a bad choice considering where you're standing.

"Anyway, I haven't given up hope that there would be someone worthy of my creations,it's just that nobody's done it yet. Do you know how FRUSTRATING THAT IS? TO HAVE BUILT MASTERPIECES WITH NOBODY TO APPRECIATE THEM???"

You hear loud breathing after his short shouting match with himself, and you faintly notice that it seemed to be coming from multiple sources.He eventually calms down enough to resume his rant.

"So, you've been using this one for a while now, say a year? Two? I forget when I killed sister dearest. You've no doubt noticed the mental connection you can have with it and also noticed that it gets weaker and weaker as the object is farther and farther away. Tell me, have you tried accessing it while its down a mile long corridor?"

You have an extremely bad feeling about where this is all leading. You tug at your retraints and to your surprise they actually loosen and allow you to stand up. You take your blindfold off and are presented with walls lined with hundreds of loudspeakers, possibly thousands, and a massive oak door with a keypad built into it.

"Ah you're up now I see. So, here's my test Detective, connect with my art beyond all odds and you will survive. There's a bomb, planted roughly five feet below the chair you were just in. If you started digging now you'd probably reach it as it explodes. But i'll make this easier for you, i'll tell you the code to your escape personally! All you have to do is find my voice. Good luck."

And with that thousands of voices, loud and soft, booming and quiet, meek and bold, accents from a thousand different areas of the world all saying a different five number combination. You double over, protecting yourself from the sound as you try with all your might to reach out but the mental connection is like chasing a helicopter with a wire hanger and expecting to be able to jump on. You scream for help, both in your mind and with your voice. Just then, you feel a tug at your conciousness, a mental pull pushing you the last few feet to your prized posession, and you leave that helpful hand with a name.

Anna Veris

You dont have long, you rush through every single voice looking for his slightly accented italian, soft but with an edge of steel. You find it with two minutes left on the clock, and enter the password.With one minute left you manage to heave open the massive door and run for your life. You hear the bomb explode behind you, and a piece of shrapnel grazes your leg but you dont care. You run for another mile before coming across a small pedastal with something on it obscured by a cloth. You take the cloth off to reveal your sound prism, just like Antonio said, a mile away from you. But as soon as you do, you get a vision, something youve never had before

It's of a woman, around five ten, with elven beauty to set anyone on a path to win her heart. She stood in a green field, with a large oak tree, more massive than even the tallest skyscraper youve ever seen. She said only one sentence, and thats all you needed to pool your resources and start on the hunt for Antonio again.

She looked you in the eyes and said "Save him from himself, please."