The Quicksand Singularity ArQive

Talvo_01.meme

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A light drizzle cast the cobbled streets in a misty lucence Ullifrikh would, on any other night, have found equal parts eerie and beautiful. As his car glided to a stop, he couldn’t help but think of how the old eccentric would have been out in the middle of the night, slipping and sliding over icy streets with his prehistoric analogue camera. In pursuit of that ever-elusive one perfect shot, he would, invariably, have found himself yet again at Old Sawbones’ surgery being treated for exposure. Frostbite had already nipped off a few of the old man’s fingertips, to say nothing of certain appendages best left off official records. Sighing, Ullifrikh engaged the vehicle’s landing gear. No point putting this off any longer.

The door to his car slid open and he stepped out into bone-chilling cold. He donned his hat and raised the collar on his woolen overcoat to block out the wind as best he could. Even for a native of Yaanis-5, winter in the South was a fierce and ferocious beast. His breath came in great puffs of smoke, which quickly coated his beard in a fine dusting of hoarfrost.

“Boss,” Deputy Jaaing greeted as Ullifrikh approached.

The young woman lifted up the police tape to let him through before following him toward the stately rowhouse where Old Man Jaafarek lived.

“Lovely place,” Jaaing said, “whole town’s straight out of a postcard.”

“Mmhmm,” Ullifrikh grunted, walking up the steps to where Detective Læfeln was waiting.

New blood. Detective Inspector Læfeln was their first. County South Alfar-Hakvidr was too rural until recently for there to have been any need of detectives. Two deputies and a sheriff had been sufficient for centuries. But with the opening of a new titanium mine and its attendant mills and manufactories near to Dagalr Village, South Alfar-Hakvidr had seen a significant influx of population. Before the Governor’s Quarterly Restructuring a few anno back sent them a dozen fresh reinforcements from Alfarsstvo, Ullifrikh, Jaaing, and Kulður had been overwhelmed.

It had been an adjustment for many of the transfers, but Ullifrikh was happy to have them, and most were happy to be rid of Alfarsstvo. From stories Læfeln and his compatriots had told—when Ullifrikh could get them to say more than a few words—Alfarsstvo had seen its better days. Dagalr Village had too, now that he thought of it.

Miners and factory folk, they were a rough bunch. Most of the work was done by drones, robots, or other heavy machinery, but these were still businesses that lived on their margins. Collecting what the diggers left behind was hard but necessary work, and even the machine operators couldn’t escape the dust and sweat, forced down into the tunnels and shafts by necessity of maintaining signal.

Like soldiers, the hard and dangerous work they did made them a hard and dangerous bunch. As much as business was booming in Yna Dagalr Industrial Zone, so too were crime rates. No place was void of black markets and the seedy individuals whose stock and trade was the illicit, not even rural South Alfar-Hakvidr. Only matters of degree separated one land from another.

What had happened here…the last time Ullifrikh had been called to a scene of this manner of crime was before his tenure as Sheriff, nearly a century and a half ago. Degrees of separation, he mused. Even rural South Alfar-Hakvidr was not immune from this.

“Boss,” Læfeln greeted as he ushered Ullifrikh in.

“Tvørrim’s beard,” Ullifrikh swore, seeing the state of the door.

“Right?” Læfeln reacted.

“You ever see something like this in Alfarsstvo?” Ullifrikh asked, assessing the foyer.

The once stately rowhouse looked as though a whirlwind had torn through it. Holes had been blasted through the walls, the inner workings thereof spilt all over the floor like shoals of gutted fish. Furniture, what of it remained identifiable, had been smashed, cut to pieces, and rifled through. Legs of tables all akimbo with fragments of whatever compartments or drawers they once had, with their contents, lay upturned in piles amidst their faces, each reduced to individual timbers and arranged in teepees as though to be made a bonfire of. Sofas and armchairs had been toppled over, spines broken, upholstery split, innards ripped out and flung aside in the manner of wild dogs, rabid and enraged. Ceilings, floorboards, light fixtures, not a thing remained in the house that had not been in some way violently defiled.

Ullifrikh’s first thought was that he had stepped into the scene of a robbery. The scale of destruction quickly disabused him that notion. Whoever had done this was looking for something. Although it was impossible, given the state of Jaafarek’s domicile, to determine whether or not it had been found, Ullifrikh felt as though whomever was responsible would not have departed without their prise.

“Watch your step,” Læfeln said, as the two stepped inside.

“Taking that as a no,” Ullifrikh assumed, stepping around a hole torn in the floor.

“Just…” Læfeln began, but the words caught in his throat. “I…”

The big city detective sighed heavily.

“Left Alfarsstvo to get away from all this?” Ullifrikh finished, as Læfeln led him upstairs.

Every niche and frame on the right side of the once stately staircase had had its contents smashed, torn out, or toppled. Sections of walls, the bases of the niches, and every third stair had been torn up, the contents behind or beneath which exhumed and littered about whatever remained intact. Once grand and ornately carved balustrades of old-growth chestnut had been smashed to pieces, their decorations no longer discernible midst their splintered remains.

“Yeah,” Læfeln agreed, stepping around a pile of rubble.

“What did the old man get his hands on to warrant this?” Ullifrikh wondered aloud.

“No idea,” Læfeln replied, reaching the top of the stairs. “Makes you think it was worth a planet’s weight in tanzaurum.”

“Þrain’s Mane,” Ullifrikh muttered, joining Læfeln on the narrow balcony set between the stairs to the first and second floors.

“You sure you want to see this?” Læfeln asked, gesturing toward the closed door to Jaafarek’s parlour.

Surprisingly, the stately chestnut door had remained unscathed. Ullifrikh shuddered to imagine why, or what lay beyond.

“No choice,” Ullifrikh responded.

Læfeln nodded his reply before banging on the door.

“Sawbones!” Læfeln barked. “Boss is here!”

“Ge’ nae ferr semma, wihjja!?” Old Sawbones shouted.

“What did he say?” Læfeln asked Ullifrikh.

The local accent may as well have been an entirely different language. Of the Alfarsstvoans, only one had achieved much success in deciphering it.

“Give no fair second, wouldn’t ya,” Ullifrikh translated, “let me handle him.”

“Fine by me,” Læfeln agreed, passing Ullifrikh on his way downstairs.

“Æy! Jja bocks mæyd flog! Biggitab jja mæk nae hae!” Ullifrikh barked at the Old Sawbones. (Oi! You box-mad flog! Pick it up! You’ll make no hay!)

“Aa fagga lamm!” Old Sawbones returned. “Gitnae rars ab in hai!” (Ah fuck a lamb! Get your arse up in here!)

Steeling himself, Ullifrikh pushed the door open.

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