Jens Reckoning

The cold body in front of us is definitely our missing agent. "How was it you found them again?"

The local detective, Jens, steps forward. "Dead in a pickle-barrel. One of a few but our first off-worlder."

Nails leans over and grabs a scalpel. "Alright if I grab something from inside them?"

The poor mortuary assistant she brandishes the blade at nods without a word. Nails gets to work retrieving the agent's reg chip while I pull a chip reader from my bag. Hopefully we can get some location history from it.

The detective looks like he wants to intervene but our ID cards gave us almost unlimited authority.

Nails throws me the chip and I catch it before inserting it into the reader. The information gets downloaded and I feed the location history to the HUD on my glasses.

After a scan I spot that the chip sat in the same place for three days without moving. "Detective, what can you tell me about Hab Block 2285?"

Jens looks a little confused at my question. "It's a dead zone. No power, no water, no point in being there."

"Well our agent was there for three days before he turned up here. What's the bet we find our killer there?"

Nails walks to a sink and starts washing her hands. "You know what they say about predictions and prognostications Carter? Never quite match up to real life."

Jens opens his comm unit and dials in a number. "I'll get us a ride out there."

We enter the floor of interest in the Hab Block and straight away can smell the emanation of dead body from the apartment down the hall. A quick walk down and we're ready to breach.

A rapid count of fingers from Nails and we kick the door in and enter.

The apartment consists of a single room with nothing but a box in the centre of the room. Our lights move over the back wall and reveal that somebody has taken photos of various people and cut them up before sticking them on seemingly at random like some kind of voyeuristic decoupage of madness.

With nothing else visible any hope we'd find the suspect is washed away like a castle of sand caught in a tidal wave.

Moving closer to the back wall I recognise our agent in some of the photos but also detective Jens. "Yo detective. Any reason you'd be up here?"

Jens moved closer and scanned the other photos. "Not a clue but the rest of these look like the previous victims."

With the rest of the room covered we move to check on the box on the floor. Now we we're close enough we can see "For Detective Jens" written on the top.

Before we can stop him Jens opens the box. Thankfully, nothing happens.

Nails face is a picture of fury and she jabs her finger into his chest hard enough to push him a little. "Were you born stupid or is it some sort of life goal?"

The shocked detective points at the box. "There's a cake in it."

With an angry huff Nails moves away toward the back wall.

I lean toward the box and under a cake with 'congratulations' written on it I can see more photographs. I'm hoping whoever left them doesn't want us dead. "Hey Jens, could you grab that cake out? There's something under it."

Without arguing he grabs the cake and lifts it out. As he does there's a muffled beep and the cake explodes. Bits of cakes rain down from above, like a shower of delicious, frosted confetti. Jens looks no worse for wear apart from the nice helping of cake covering him.

Trying not to laugh I pull the photos out. They are of Jens and another guy in uniform. I hold them up to his face and give him a bit of a shake to pull him out of shock. "Who's this Jens?"

A look of recognition mixed with anger crosses the detective's face. "It can't be. He said I'd never see him again. That he was going off world."

Clearly this guy wasn't going to be a huge help here without some encouragement. "Who Jens? Who is that?"

Jens finally snapped out of his funk. "Ex partner. Regularly took things too far on the job but when it caught up to him I couldn't let him go down for it. Managed to get him a forced resignation instead of a cell but it cost me a lot."

Nails rejoins us now visibly calmer. "You let this violent asshole go free? I'm thinking you were born stupid."

Jens just look defeated. "Maybe you're right. Either way it means I've got one shitty case to work on now."