Detective Elecman and the Case of the Boss Ch. 2

Elecman left his boss to the interrogation, nearly bumping into his partner. “There you are.” Crash started, “Where’d you go?”

He hesitated a moment before confessing the truth, “I went to talk to Cutman.” He said, noting Crashman’s surprisingly disapproving look, “He said some weird stuff and Ringman told me about a man called Doctor Light and that I’d lost my memory.”

“Oh yeah?” Crash answered weakly, it was clear something was bothering him about Elecman’s experience.

Elecman ignored it, however, “Yeah…now that I think about it, the ‘DL’ in my identification number makes sense now; Doctor Light.” He smiled a bit, proud of himself for figuring it out, “I can’t figure out the N, though.”

“It means number.” Crashman answered, starting toward the doors, “Anyway, Ringman wants us to go check out the maybe-poisoned guy’s house for any more clues.”

Elecman followed after his partner, “Interesting…Doctor Light Number…” He murmured. He looked at his partner as the two made their way out the door and down the street. The electric type was uncertain about his next question, recalling how his co-workers would all react in disgust to the DWN in their own identifying numbers. He finally worked up the courage to ask, “What does the W in yours stand for?”

The orange robot stopped dead, throwing a look back at Elecman. For a moment he was silent then turned forward once again and started walking. “Wily.” He answered quietly.

“Wily?!” Elec was quick to catch up with his partner, “As in the gang leader??”

“Yup. He didn’t start out a gang leader, though. He tried to take over the world with robots a few times.”

“He certain made a lot of them…What happened?”

Crashman shrugged, “Well I mean, he didn’t really make most of them, and I guess DWN just kinda stuck with them, even after they left. As for why he’s a gang leader now I’m not really sure. I guess he got sick of losing all the time. Honestly, I’m surprised he didn’t try again after Meg--” He paused a second, looking back at Elecman “Did Ringman tell you anything about your siblings?” The DLN shook his head, “Oh alright. Well, let’s not worry about it right now.” Crashman said, heading into an apartment building and making his way up the stairs, “We’re here, let’s focus on our job.”

OoOoO

The duo entered the dead man’s apartment and, just as the police report said, it seemed as though no struggle had taken place. The apartment itself was looked fairly standard for a middle-class citizen of their city. A small living room with a surprisingly expensive TV resting on the wall, a fair-sized kitchen off to one side and a single hallway leading farther into the apartment, leading to a bathroom just short of claustrophobic, and two bedrooms; one a minefield of boxes and junk with a bare bed against the farthest wall and the other a clean room that was obviously the former resident’s bedroom.

The two robots spilt up to search the apartment, though the electric one could hardly concentrate on his work. As he picked his way through the junk of the storage bedroom, his mind returned to his conversation with Ringman, his enigmatic brother, and his partner’s reactions to said brother and conversation.

Though his boss’ reasoning had made sense and his warnings very clear, the detective could not help but feel the other robots on the police force were hiding something from him and his older brother may just be the robot to help him find out that secret.

“Find anything?” Crashman asked, peeking into the room.

Startled out of his thoughts, Elecman took a few moments to respond, “Um, no, nothing in here. Did you find anything?”

“I wouldn’t call it a clue, but he’s got a cabinet full of E-tanks.” Crash responded, beckoning his partner with a drilled hand. The other obliged, following him into the kitchen and looking at a three-shelved cabinet crammed with E-tanks.

Elec frowned, “What would a human need with so many E-tanks?” he questioned, taking one down to examine. It looked like an ordinary, unopened E-tank.

“Maybe he’s got a lot of robot friends?” Crash suggested, “Humans and robots hang out all the time now.”

“True…That could also be why this wasn’t brought up in the report.” He replaced the E-tank, continuing to look at the blue cans. “Still, something seems wrong about it…”

The orange one nodded, “I got the same feeling. Like maybe there’s something there he wanted to hide.”

The other hoisted himself onto the counter as Crash spoke. Crashman watched from the ground as his partner pushed aside cans to search the cabinet, finding nothing of note until reaching the highest shelf. Pushing the first row of cans to the side revealed a shoe box. “Huh…that’s interesting.” Elec mumbled, bringing the box down as he climbed off the counter.

Inside the box, the two found a stack of opened letters, each envelope blank save for what appeared to be an eight-pointed, red and white pinwheel-like logo stamped on each.

Unable to hold the envelopes, Crashman peered at the emblem. “I don’t recognize this symbol.” He said, looking at Elecman, “Maybe it’s a company he works for?”

“Maybe…” Elecman answered, taking the top envelope off the stack and checking its contents.

The two robots felt their circuits freeze at the simple phrase typed across the otherwise empty page.

‘Your time is up.’

OoOoO

The detectives were back at the police station in record time, the DLN clutching the shoe box to his chest as he and his partner ran down the street.

The two burst through the door to the chief of police’s office, “Sir! We found--!”

Ringman cut off the robots, “Detectives, I’m glad you’re here.” He stood up from his desk, gesturing to a teenage girl who had turned to face the two as they entered, “This is Flareon Keahi. She’ll be shadowing you two for the next week.”

The amber-eyed girl was tall and tanned, at the moment sporting black sweatpants and a matching jacket covering a white T-shirt with a flame pictured in its center and finished the look off with pink converse shoes.

The girl smiled, moving a strand of red hair out of her face. “Hi.” Surprisingly, she spoke with a British accent. She put a hand out to shake, “It’s nice to meet you, detectives.” She shook Elecman’s hand and paused at seeing Crashman’s lack of hands. The orange robot saluted instead, the human copied the action.

“It’s nice to meet you two.” Elecman said, immediately turning his attention to Ringman after, “Sir, can I talk with you privately for a second?” he led Ringman out, closing the door behind him as the other detective sat down to talk with the eighteen year old.

After a briefly summarizing what had happened at the apartment and showing Ringman the threatening letter, the red robot seemed to get more serious, “I see…” He glanced through the window at the human sitting in his office, he sighed, “Unfortunately, I already agreed to let her shadow the both of you for school, she’s looking to be a detective herself.” He looked back at Elecman, “For now let her go along, but if things start getting dangerous I’ll find someone else she can shadow.”

The electric robot nodded, “Yes sir.” He glanced down at the box in his hands, “And if you don’t mind, I’d like to take a look through these before submitting them to evidence.”

The boss nodded, “Very well. But be careful with them. If you lose them, then I’m afraid they won’t be much help to us.”

“Of course, sir.” The two headed back into the office.

“Say ‘schedule’.” Crashman said.

“Shedule.” Flareon replied.

“I love you accent!” the robot squealed, “Say more words!”

“Crashman.” Elecman deadpanned, getting the attention of the two. “Sorry about him, he’s usually more professional while he’s working.” He apologized.

“Oh, it’s fine.” Flareon smiled, “He’s funny.” The drill-handed robot smiled proudly at this.

“Anyway,” Elecman said, throwing a look at his partner, “At the moment we’re on a case.”

“Perfect! This is exactly the kind of stuff I wanted to see!” Flareon said, jumping out of her seat, “When do we start??”

Elecman put up a hand to calm her, “However given what we know so far, this case could be dangerous. You’ll be with Crash and I for now, but if things get to be too dangerous, Chief Ringman will be putting you with someone else.” Flareon opened her mouth to protest, but was quickly cut off by the DLN, “It’s for your own safety.”

The girl closed her mouth, reluctantly nodding, “Alright…”

“Good.” Elecman gestured for the two to follow him, “Come on then, we have some evidence to look over.”

OoOoO

The detectives read through the letters, most of which were simple phrases indicating that the recipient was running out of time. What this was was not revealed until the last letter. The envelope on the very bottom of the stack bore another simple phrase, but told the detectives enough to confirm that the man’s death had in fact been a murder.

‘I expect my favor be repaid. Or else.’

“Favor? What kind of favor?” Flareon asked, jotting down notes for the paper she would later be writing about her experience.

“Based on the other notes he got, it’s probably something illegal.” Crash said, “It’d probably help if we can find out more about the victim.”

“Can’t we find anything out about the people who sent the notes?” Flareon asked, looking up from her paper.

Elecman shook his head, “Every one of them is printed on standard printing paper, no signatures or anything.” He held up an envelope, “All we have to go on is this symbol, but I don’t recognize this from any company or group in or around this city.”

“Maybe it’s a secret cult or something.” Crash suggested, getting a disapproving look from his partner. He was quick to jump to his own defense, “What? It could happen! Flarey, back me up here.”

The teen looked between the two robots, as if debating which side to take, “I guess it is possible…” she said finally.

Crashman grinned, pointing a drill at Flareon, “There, see? I’m not crazy!”

“That’s debatable.” Elecman answered, putting the letters back into the shoe box, “Anyway, it’s starting to get late. Flareon, you should really be heading home. We’ll meet back up here tomorrow.” The girl nodded, gathering her things into her backpack and hurrying out while calling a goodbye over her shoulder. “Crash, see if you can get our victim’s file, if not tonight then tomorrow morning.”

The orange ‘bot nodded, mockingly saluting the other robot, “Sir, yes sir!” he said, scurrying out the door before Elec had a chance to swipe at him.

Now alone, the robot sighed quietly, once the events of the day had kicked in the robot had forgotten about what had happened just that morning, but now that he was starting to wind down for the day, he found his mind going back to the scissor-headed robot and recalling that his boss had marked him as a person of interest for the case.

The electric type exited the room, and headed to the entrance to wait for his friend. In the time it took for the drill-handed one to return, he had come to the conclusion that he could kill two birds with one stone; use this Cutman character, however untrustworthy he was, to solve a murder and find out more about the past everyone seemed to be trying to hide from him.