The First Turnabout (Sista-Luff)

BANG!

"'Pull over or we will shoot to Kill!' This was the scene earlier today..." The TV blared from the top of a skyscraper, as the residents of the large city all turned and stared, "An unknown blond haired man," The TV camera-Presumable from it place among the heaven's, riding atop a helicopter- zoomed in on the back of the Man's head. His blond haired flew backwards from the air rushing over him from over the top of his convertible window. "The unknown man, who went by the alias Rick Mercier, escaped a police barricade after robbing a bank, and killing three people," The camera zoomed out showing the man being tailed by five police cars, sirens blaring in a furry of red light, "The Man has currently escaped the police, and is still out on the lamb, he is considered armed and very dangerous," The Screen flashed white, and turned to a very pixley picture of the man's front, the fuzzy apparition-taken by a cell phone no doubt- was titled, 'Wanted Dead or Alive', "The man is about Six feet tall, well built, tanned, and dresses almost entirely in white, if you see this man do not hesitate to call the police. There is a 100,000$ reward for anyone who provides information, and a 1,000,000$ dollar reward for anyone who can apprehend the victim, dead or alive. He is extremely dangerous and is considered a threat to national security, please use caution."

Click.

Derrik sighed and turned off the flickering box that served as the only illumination in his dark Hotel room. It was getting harder to move around with the police after him at every turn, and now they even had a bounty on his head, it seemed they where determined to bring him down no matter the cost.

Knock Knock.

Damn. Derrik didn't need to think, the steady knocking was getting louder, as if with each knock a nose was slowly tightening around his neck, they had found him. "Open up, this is the police, we have the building surrounded," Derrik knew what was going to happen. Smash. With a resounding explosion the door was blown apart with small explosion, sending a furry of smoke and splinter towards him.

Through cover of smoke, and swat shields the police rushed in creating a semi-circle around Derrik who was now standing calmly, "You're coming with us," One of them said behind a heavy mask. Derrik lowered his head, and with one hand put on his hat.

"You'll have to kill me," The perfect assassin Took his pistol and pointed it straight out, aiming for on of the men's head.

"Put the gun down, and you live,"

"I don't have time for this,"

Bang.

The sound of gun shot was followed by the sound of shattering glass, and then more deadly gunshots. The blond haired man had already lept out the window, as the foolish police officers cursed their own ignorance. Even from the seventh story they should have expected that he would not go in easily. Radioing their superiors as the man fell seven stories down, they knew their pay was about to be reduced to mere ashes.

Derrik landed perfectly into the seat of his car, and sped off into the night. It would only get harder from here on out.

OoC: I...have no idea where this is going...but it sounded cool in my head. xD Have fun Sista-luff.

OoC: Z had to direct my attention to this. XD I know originally I said I'd use Cadenza or Hunter, but after reading this, I just have to use Inspector Tracey herself...

*also, applauds the PW reference in the title : P*

IC:
It had been a few weeks since Tracey had last been on the trail of such a big-time criminal, and by Jove did it feel good. Granted, it wasn't in her usual precinct, but a cop was a cop anywhere, and the police force here had been desperate for any kind of extra help they could get. When that extra help came in the form of a fully-fledged inspector willing to work for half-pay just to get a good case, well then they couldn't pull out that welcome mat fast enough...

The criminal's name was Rick Mercier. That, right off the bat, sounded suspect enough. No competent law-breaker with that much money on his head got anywhere by leaving his real name somewhere it could be found. "Rick Mercier" had to be an alias--and thus, not worth using in her search.

What other details had these amateur witnesses gathered? Well...there was his hair color. He was supposedly blond--but really, couldn't that description fit about half the population of this city? He was also reported to be "about six-feet tall, well-built, tanned, and dressed almost entirely in white". A bit more to go on, assuming certain aspects of that weren't just part of a disguise. The "well-built" and "six-foot tall" part left a little bit to worry about, if this all were to come down to a physical struggle... but that's what one endured in the name of justice, right? Tracey just wished there had been some more observant people on the scene. Maybe someone who could've noticed how he walked, or the kinds of weapons he used...

Her new cop partner splashed some water in her face. It was his way of getting her attention, and the detective wasn't particularly fond of it.

"...Yes?" she muttered, wiping her face with her uniform's iron-pressed sleeve. There went the money on that dry-cleaning job, she thought--only five hours on the police force here, and already it was wrinkled. She looked up at her partner with an expression that implied he'd better have a very good reason for needing her attention...

"It's your turn to drive," he said. He handed her the keys. They were supposed to be in hot pursuit of this Mercier guy, but the other squads were already far ahead and probably didn't need them to just burn rubber and give chase. De Carlo wanted to stay behind and do more research, but something about Inspector Lestrade's attitude told her he just wanted to do the plain old job set before him and drive pointlessly like everyone else.

And so, they drove off into the dark city streets...

OoC: Ten (Monopoly game) dollars to you if you can spot the Sherlock Holmes reference in this. :3

So far so good, the less mistakes he made the easier it would be to arrive at him prime directive, but that was a long ways off. So far he had only gathered the funds required for the heist, he had not even gotten the buildings adress, only a name. "Bio-Co", a suspicious name, apparently a hidden agency created by the government for the purpose of genetic modification, it was Top Secret of course. What he needed now was information, or more importantly an escape, he had just duped the police in a side alley, but it wouldn't be long before they caught up with him.

The street lights flickered occasionally, as he searched for the place he could get information. There underneath a large sign was where he needed to go. An Internet Cafe.

It was going to be risky, Derrik decided as he walked into the near empty Cafe. Of course given the fact it was well past 1:00 it was no surprise the all hours coffee shop was all but empty. The Shop was quaint enough, about six tables, all on black and white tiled floor, with a stripped wall paper, ordering a Black Coffee he took a seat furthest away from the large window at the front of the store, and opened up his laptop.

Click Click Click.

Access Denied.

Click Click Click.

Access Denied.

Click Click Click.

Access granted.

A simple algorithm, he was surprised the police had such easily accessible databases. A Few minutes of file searching later and he found what he was looking for, the lead inspectors of his case, eight in total. Searching through their records Derrik first noticed that all but one had their names underneath the pictures. An Orange haired girl, she looked familiar. She was a mystery, and until he could figure out who she was, that girl would be his biggest threat.

Click Click Click.

Printing...Derrik leisurely took a sip of his dark coffee with his right hand as he waited for the printing job to finish.

Printing Cancelled...Access Denied.

"Dammit!" Derrik yelled slamming his bare right fist onto the table so hard the coffee cup fell over, the black abyss spreading across the table and dripping onto the floor. It was his first mistake, and it was a big one. They caught him, and no doubt they where had already tracked his wear-abouts, time to make himself scarce, as fast as he could he unhooked his laptop and stormed out the door, failing to realize his second mistake.

OoC; Puck didn't get the reference...let's see how good your observations skills are...What is Derrik's second mistake?

OoC: 'Twas in her cop partner's name--Lestrade. That's the name of one of the ordinary policemen Holmes has to deal with when working on his cases (Holmes being a detective independent of the police force.)

And I believe I caught the mistake. I mean, you only italicized a bajillion times. : P

IC:
"Message from the chief," Lestrade announced as the fax rattled out of the machine set into the dashboard. He had one of those little hula dancer toys attached to the dash, and its hips undulated in time with every beep. "There's a map to the internet cafe they traced him to."

"We traced him to the place? Why are we assuming he didn't just run? Wasn't he using a laptop?"

A scornful silence was all that came from the passenger seat. Tracey took that as being the silence that came when a cop was presented with a question they couldn't answer and didn't want to admit they couldn't answer it. She tended to get those from the captain a lot.

The silence was drowned out by the noises of the engine as the car veered onto a side road, speeding towards the cafe. Other vehicles had to swerve out of the way--this was the car of a detective in the "on the case" mindset. Speed and space were no issues--the questions running through Tracey's head were: Will there be any clues left behind? and Will a guy like this actually have forgotten something we can use?

These were the thoughts on her mind as they skidded to a stop, Lestrade blew a raspberry at the meter maid, and the two cops went inside.

The cafe was an early-morning graveyard.

If graveyards had black 'n' white-checkered tiles and smelled of French Roast, that is. Two employees were snoozing at the counter, and had completely failed to notice the cup lying on the floor that had been precisely the first thing Tracey noted as they came in. It was, more or less, the only sign of life in the place.

She strode over to the cup, bent over, picked it up. There was a long silence as she turned the mug over and over in her hands, and then pulled some fingerprinting kit out of a unseen pocket somewhere in her cloak and started going to work. Lestrade watched her labor over the process out of the corner of his eye as he paced about, taking the whole scene in.

Some minutes later, he started to whistle. Tracey had moved onto testing the counter. She had this...silly little smile on her face, he thought, like an excited little kid. It almost seemed like her eyes were twinkling a little.

A few more moments of testing, and she stood up triumphantly, replacing the fingerprint kit back into her pocket.

"We have some more data to go off of," she said with a grin. "Our man might have been absent, but his fingerprints were not."

As the cold night air washed past his face, the fugitive could hear the faint sound of sirens blaring off in the distance, hot on the trail of their first clue no doubt. As he weaved his way through the empty, and maze like, city streets he came to an abrupt realization. His coffee cup. Immediately he knew that no detective worth their salt would pass up such a clue like that, and with that single clue came so much more.

Being part of a government agency means that if by chance you are caught doing something unlawful your entire history can be accessed with just fingerprints, for the case of Derrik this meant so much more. Everything from his name and age, to the fact he was a bioengineered assassin was up for grabs. Even more distressing is the fact that he has been able to escape the law time and time again by the mere fact normal bullets couldn't kill him, so if they found out about his strengths they could simply switch to more powerful guns, and then he would be in a bind.

"****!" he slammed his hand onto his dashboard, he had to think quickly. As he flew down the street much faster then the speed limit suggested, he came to a conclusion. He either, A: had to find a way to change his records, or B: Distract the Police until he found the cop who had his finger prints. The first was almost impossible, and the second would be hard to preform, somehow he had to lure the attention of the cops, and fast.

Actually on second though the second would be easy after all. Screeching to a stop he found himself at yet another Internet cafe, almost identical to the last as there where from the same chain. Walking in he opened up his trust black lap top, imputed a few codes, and then left it there.

Walking outside he put leaned his hat down over his eyes, and leaned casually against his car, ignoring the chilling breeze that seemed to hold the city in it's grip. With any luck the detective that got the cup would come, looking back through the glass window he could see his lap top clearly as he saw the words "Access Denied" flash across the screen, seconds later sirens could be heard in the distance. He smiled lightly as he awaited his company.

OoC: A little short...but it will do.

OoC: Short is fine. :]

IC:
Beeps interrupted her train of thought. Before she knew it, Lestrade was thrusting another sheet of paper in her face.

"Another fax from the chief. The guy's computer has been traced to another cafe."

"Another? Trying to finish what he began at the other, or...?"

Lestrade shrugged. That was his answer for everything, Tracey thought. He never questioned, he had no imagination, he just shrugged as though that would really help anything.

The squad car skidded around a curve and wailed back down the street. The detective didn't like this--if this criminal was so clever, would he really be trying again so soon after failing? Would he allow himself to be tracked again? No. There's something fishy here, and we're heading right for it...

They pulled up to the internet cafe in a few minutes' time. There was one cop car there, and some civilian's car--Tracey noted the license plate numbers and other details of both automobiles, just in case. Two cops were already heading inside to investigate a computer left on the desk--from here, the sleuth could just make out the words "Access Denied" flashing across the screen. It was all too easy, too obvious, and she refused to follow Lestrade inside the place to fall for it.

"I want to have a chat with our friend here in the bowler hat," she told him, brushing her partner off. The officer, of course, shrugged and headed inside.

When the girl strode up to him, hand at the ready on her gun, he seemed to smirk, but under that bowler, who could be sure...

"Sir, I believe you're parked in a Fire Lane, and I'm going to have to ask you to move."

The white clothed man lifted his bowler hat just a tad in order to see the women addressing him. A Red haired, freckle faced girl who looked like she just entered her twenties. It was exactly who he was looking for. “You a cop right?”

“Inspector De Carlo, once again I am going to have to ask you to move,”

“Your walking a thin line,” Derrik smirked, and pulled out his Pistol pointing it at her face, “I can’t let you live, I’m sorry,’ A Sound of a gun shot pierced through the cold dark night, startling everyone near by, ‘Damn,” Derrik’s weapon dropped to the ground softly as he held his hand in pain, the smoking gun was in her hand.

“I’m taking you in,” Derrik completely ignored her words, and instead reached for his other Pistol. Another gunshot rang through the air; Derrik was just able to duck his shoulder down in time causing the bullet to pierce the glass behind it sending shards flying with a death defying crash. The Cops Inside shielded their eyes and came running outside as Tracy unloaded a round at the man as he carefully danced out of the way as ran towards his car -He didn’t want his trump card to be revealed so soon-.

Just as he got to his convertible door shot rang out from the Café, the Assassin ducked behind his car as the shots collided with it. I Have no time for this, The man with the bowler cap though lobbying a grenade towards them. The Police screamed and scattered as the explosive ignited, using this distraction leapt into his drivers side seat, his plan didn’t work out as he had planned.

Bang.

She got him, right in the temple no less, the impact of the shot causing his head to crack to the side in an unnatural way. Snapping it back he looked over at the dumbfounded Detective De Carlo, her weapon still pointing at him. “You are walking a thin line De Carlo, Please don’t make me kill you,” With that he sped off into the night leaving the scattered and wounded cops, and the red headed detective behind him. There was no doubt in his mind that she was going to follow him.

oOc: Another shorty...

She called for medical assistance and back-up from her car. There was no wasting time--she had to be on the move. As soon as they confirmed they were on their way to help the cops at the cafe, she booted up the menu on the dashboard and requested a connection to forensics.

The prints--that was what would tell her who this man was. This man who could withstand a bullet right to the temple, as though it'd just been a simple punch. This man that seemed to be several moves ahead...

...the computer chimed, and the voice of the Head of the Forensics Department answered, a little impatiently.

"We're busy with quite a lot of other tasks, de Carlo," he warned, "this had better be bloody important."

"I'm faxing you a copy of some fingerprints, Rooney. Analyze them and send back when you discover who they belong to. And be quick about it!"

"Why should we stop everything we're doing just to oblige you?" Rooney asked, but it was less demanding than his tone had been earlier...something about the inspector's urgent voice when she made the request had surprised him. It was the first time in a long time he'd heard a senior officer that sounded like they genuinely cared about their case.

"Because this is the man we've all been chasing...the man that escaped us...the one we couldn't bring to justice after he'd robbed a bank and killed three people. I need to know who he is! I have to stop this now before he gets away with any more, do you understand?"

There was a pause on the other end. And then, "...Affirmative, Inspector. You will have those fingerprint results as quickly as our men can get them."

Tracey let out a breath. At least there were some people on this force that still did their job. "Thank you, Rooney. Over and out."

The detective pulled up to a fork in the road. She hadn't been close enough to see which way the criminal had went...and there wasn't much in the way of clues to assist her. With his computer destroyed, she was going to have to find another way to track him...

...what, if anything, can I do with his license plate information and his description?

She was getting far to close to him, she got a good look at his face, his licence plate number, and his fingerprints. If she had a good memory she could use his appearance in a search which would lead to at least seven different aliases, and hundreds of other crimes he had committed. With that information he would most likely be labeled a national threat, and a terrorist adding even more investigators. He zipped along the blackened city, stars still burning bright in the black sky. It was getting late into the night, no doubt he would be playing this game through dawn.

Tapping his fingers on his steering wheel irritably the dangers of what she knew ever present in his mind. The car he was driving was previously a government vehicle assigned to him, even though he changed the license plate the description of the car should be enough to track it back, and with one revelation many more could be formed. His finger prints where another problem, he was a High Security government experiment, and while he was labeled a "Failure" and his was officially 'Deceased" there was no doubt that information about him would be so easily attainable just by locating his fingerprints on a coffee cup. At the very most they would get his real name, a false age, and the fact he was legally deceased.

He rubbed his temple, it was still a little sore from the bullet shot. Oh yeah...she saw that didn't she. With any luck she would keep that information to herself, which means he needs to get rid of her, but in order to do that he would need to draw her out alone. He would need some sort of tool to do that, something like...a hostage.

One U-Turn and a couple of minutes later and he found himself back at that old cafe. As his car screeched to a stop in front of the police's yellow tape the every persistent criminal leaped from his car and fired a couple of rounds from his shotgun igniting the crowd into panic, "Everyone on the ground, hands on your heads you move you die, am I making myself clear,' he yelled into the group, which reluctantly followed. The emergency crews acted fast, already there where two ambulances, and five police cars full of investigators, of course Derrik only needed one Hostage.

Looking about the scene the white clothed man saw who he was looking for, the man who was in the same car as her, he would do perfectly, "You get up," he said sternly to Lestarde, "You're coming with me," Derrik grabbed the man's shoulder and pushed him into the passenger's seat, keeping a gun locked on his head, "You," he pointed his gun at one of the officers laying face down on the cold concrete street, "Call inspector De Carlo, tell her to meet me on top of the April wine apartment complex in one hour, tell her to come alone or else." Firing another round of ammunition into the air to keep the men down, he leapt into his divers seat, and sped off, keeping a gun trained on his hostages head.

OoC:Not the best, but it's done.

OoC: I'm feeling a little rusty lately, but here goes. (Yours was good and dramatic, by the way. :3)

IC:
Her phone was ringing like mad. The first beep had startled her--she had thought it was Rooney, sending over a fax, and the adrenaline was pumping so quickly through her body now that she'd jumped at the thought of getting that one step closer to a solution. But instead, it was her phone...and it was coming from a policeman she'd seen back at the last cafe.

With trembling fingers, one hand firmly on the steering wheel, she put the cell on speaker and listened.

"De Carlo, de Carlo, are you there?"

It was the urgent yell of a cop who was trying to keep a level-head, but was panicked on the inside. She recognized the tone.

"Yes, Officer Stone, what is it?"

"T-the man in white, he came back! He took Lestrade as a hostage, and he's demanding that you meet him alone atop the April Wine apartment complex in one hour, or else!"

The redheaded sleuth almost wanted to grin--she should have expected a play like this from that man. That man who could withstand bullets...

"Stone--call Rooney, and see what his progress is on the prints I sent him. Also, tell him I'm faxing over a brief description of a car and some other details about this criminal, and that he should get to work on them pronto. Understand? Make these calls on a heavily-encrypted line, do you copy?"

"Copy that, Inspector. And...Inspector?"

"Yes, Stone?"

"Be...be careful, okay?"

"Not a necessary comment, Stone... De Carlo, out."

She just managed to control her shaking enough to thumb the speaker button off and close the phone. She skidded to a stop in an alley, rifling through her glovebox for a pen, and in a few minutes, had her reports scribbled down and faxed back to the station.

There were still forty-seven minutes left.

Reaching back into the glove compartment, she moved aside some files and took out her wallet. She flipped it open to the photo of Monroe by her ID card, gave the picture a little kiss, and then closed the old wallet back up again and shoved it into her pocket.

You never knew how these showdowns might turn out. But now the station knew everything she knew...maybe they were without her hunches to aid them, but at least they had her observations written down to guide them. No matter what happened in the next hour, she was confident that they'd bring this man to justice with that information. He would have to face the law.

She put her foot back on the pedal, and the car started back up, zooming through the streets.

Forty-minutes until the face-down.

OoC: Feel free to timeskip in your next post. ^^;;

OoC: Time for a little introspective insight in the enigmatic Derrick.

IC:

What exactly is beauty? I speak not of physical beauty, or anything of the sort, but what defines beauty in a landscape. When you look from the top of a building at a sprawling capitalist society as thousands of people hurry back and forth between perpendicular buildings, and perpendicular buildings, is that beauty. Are the thousands of lights emitting from this city at midnight, lighting up the sky-giving testament to the work of man, and knowledge that even if men die their legacy will last forever. Is that beauty? Or rather is beauty like when you sit atop a mountaintop and look at the sprawling hills of nature, as thousands of animals move erratically to survive in the harsh wilderness of this law free land, is this beauty? When you sit atop at midnight, with nothing but the light of stars and the moon the illuminate the vast forests, and lakes that are out stretched in front of you, allowing you to see God’s-if he even exists for that matter- original design of the world. Is that beauty? Or maybe they both are, but then how can two different things be so close.

Derrik’s feet where slung over the side of the tall building, his eyes looking forward at the city which was sparkling as the new day sun was just peeking over the horizon setting the sky ablaze with colour. The man looked at his hand turning it over several times. Human are by existence the very top of the evolutionary chain, the result of a billion years of progress lead to the creation of his species, though he really couldn’t say his species. The human race was by definition a part of nature, but their actions and designs where by definition not. They created things straight and narrow much different then the seemingly chaotic nature of the world. So then what was he, a man created by humans, a man created for the sole purpose of placing human mentality at the mantle of God. Sure there where other reasons, but at the heart of it, Derrik was simply created because humans wanted to show just how great they where.

So who was he? Was he the progress of nature, the result of billions of years of hard work and elimination, or was he just another structure, a tower amidst a forest, his straight and perpendicular lines in contrast to the many angles of the world. Was he really a human, or just another creation, another thing for humans to put their name on so they could say, “Look how great we are, look what we can do. Truly we must be gods,” Just another pawn is all he was, a pawn to ensure the greatness of the human race.

Small light steps broke his chain of thought.

Looking at his watch he could she arrived at the directed time, on the dot. Just as expected.

Derrik didn’t look back at her,, instead he just looked at the vast world in front of him, “So you came,” Derrik said calmly, “I suppose you have prepared the necessary arrangements in order to bring me to justice, after you retrieve your friend from my evil grasp no doubt. Unfortunately I cannot let you do that…I suppose you would expect me to say such things, but before you shot me let me ask you a question,” He said getting to his feet and turning to the red headed cop for the first time, “What is Justice?”

"What is justice?"

Tracey almost wanted to laugh--it was such an absurd question to pose now. She'd expected a shot to the head as soon as she'd reached the tops of the steps and went out onto the rooftrop... but instead, she was faced with this.

She loved it.

On the surface, it was a simple enough question... maybe a tactic to stall for time. But this was also a sign of her enemy reaching out to try and probe her mind, and that meant she was, at least intellectually, a challenge perhaps...

Madrigal wouldn't have given me time for a breath if she thought I was a threat, but this guy... wants to know what I think.

She could hear the blood beating in her own ears as she opened her mouth to answer. "Justice is... the law being carried out. Restoring order in chaos--protecting the innocent and weak and punishing those who act against society in the interest of harm... reminding those that think they're above the law that they are not. Seeing that every crime meets its due consequence, and every criminal their due sentence. Seeing that everyone... no matter how strong, is accountable under the laws that keep our civilization running and separate us from the beasts and savages. That is... justice to me."

The detective, for once, found that she couldn't read his expression when she had finished talking. Common sense would have said to try and arrest him now in some way, while he was wrapped up in thought, but... she wanted to see how he'd reply. Her zealous curiosity got the better of her.