— 'History is not altered by crowds. It is altered by the rare organism capable of surviving its own era.'
---
The murder board had stopped resembling a murder board weeks ago. At some point it had become a map. Photographs, newspaper clippings, toxicology reports, pathology summaries and transit records covered almost every inch of the office wall. Black thread had long since been abandoned. Elena Trofanova preferred pencil. Pencil could be erased. Assumptions could not. The fluorescent lights buzzed softly above her desk while the rest of the Major Investigations floor drifted through another ordinary afternoon. Phones rang. Someone laughed near the coffee machine. Two detectives argued over paperwork before immediately forgetting what they had been arguing about. Life continued. Only Elena's corner seemed detached from it.
She stood with folded arms before the wall, studying it as though enough silence would eventually persuade it to speak. School. Nightclub. Industrial laboratory. Three disappearances. Two unexplained collapses. Four deaths officially attributed to natural complications. One transportation incident. Individually they were meaningless. Together— Together they refused to stay unrelated. She uncapped her pen. Not another line. Another question.
Why here?
She circled the district once more. Not the city. Not the county. One district. Too concentrated. Far too concentrated. Someone was working inside a radius. Testing. No. Learning. Her stomach tightened. Learning implied improvement.
"Trofanova."
She looked up. Sergeant Willis leaned through the office doorway with two folders tucked beneath one arm.
"You've been staring at that wall for three hours."
"I've been thinking."
"So has everyone else."
"They're thinking about separate cases."
"They are separate cases."
"No."
Willis sighed.
"There it is again."
"They're connected."
"They don't share victims."
"No."
"Method."
"No."
"Motive."
"No."
He waited. Elena turned back toward the board.
"They share evolution."
Silence. She picked up another photograph.
"The first incidents are sloppy."
She placed it beneath another.
"The later ones become cleaner."
Another.
"Faster."
Another.
"Less evidence."
Another.
"Greater confidence."
She stepped backwards.
"Whatever this is... it isn't repeating."
She tapped the newest file.
"It's improving."
Willis rubbed his forehead.
"You're describing one offender."
"I'm describing one mind."
"Same difference."
"No."
She met his eyes.
"This person isn't committing murders."
She hesitated.
"They're conducting research."
The room remained quiet for several seconds. Eventually Willis laughed. Not cruelly. Wearily.
"You've watched too many documentaries."
"I don't watch documentaries."
"Noticeable."
He walked away.
"I'll put in another request for your biological records."
"You won't."
"No."
"Why?"
"Because they'll reject it again."
They did. Again.
ACCESS DENIED.
LEVEL FOUR MATERIAL.
INSUFFICIENT CLEARANCE.
She read the message twice. Then a third time. She was not requesting classified weapon systems. She wanted old epidemiological studies from government laboratories that had closed nearly twenty years earlier. Research. Nothing operational. Nothing active. Nothing dangerous. Unless— Unless there was something dangerous hidden inside them. She submitted another request. Denied. Another. Denied. By evening she had exhausted every procedural route available to her.
The email arrived just after six. No sender. No signature. Only one sentence.
> Someone from the Council wishes to speak with you tomorrow morning.
She stared at it. Then read it again.
Finally.
Someone competent.
---
The Government Council building had been designed by people who disliked ornament. Stone. Glass. Straight lines. Everything served a purpose. Even the silence. Elena was escorted through three security checkpoints before being shown into a waiting room that looked more like a university library than the centre of national administration. Books. Plants. Natural light. No portraits. No flags. Only shelves filled with economics, engineering, epidemiology, philosophy and mathematics. She found herself reading the spines. Then noticed nearly every volume had handwritten notes tucked inside. Someone actually used this room. Not decoration. Work. The assistant returned.
"He's ready."
---
Cassius did not look important. That surprised her. He was younger than expected. Early thirties. Plain charcoal suit. White shirt with rolled sleeves. No expensive watch. No visible security. No theatrical authority. Only exhaustion. The kind that settled permanently behind someone's eyes after years of sleeping too little. He stood when she entered.
"Detective Trofanova."
His handshake was firm without trying to dominate.
"Thank you for coming."
"You asked for me."
"I did."
His office resembled the waiting room. Books everywhere. Research papers stacked into neat towers. Pinned demographic maps. Educational statistics. Population models. Economic projections. One entire wall covered by photographs of science fairs, universities and engineering competitions. Children. Teenagers. Young researchers. Award ceremonies. She frowned slightly.
"You mentor?"
"I observe."
He smiled faintly.
"The country spends extraordinary amounts cultivating talent."
His eyes drifted across the photographs.
"I prefer to know whether the investment succeeds."
He gestured toward the chair opposite him.
"Please."
For several moments neither of them spoke. Cassius read the file lying before him. Not the murders. Her evaluations. He turned each page carefully. No rushing. No performance.
"You requested historical biological reports."
"Yes."
"They were denied."
"Repeatedly."
"You appealed."
"I did."
"You were denied again."
"Yes."
He closed the folder.
"Why?"
She blinked.
"I'm sorry?"
"Not why were you denied."
He leaned back.
"Why do you want them?"
Most officials interrupted. Most already knew the answer they wished to hear. Cassius simply waited. Listening. Actually listening. It almost unsettled her.
"I believe," she began carefully, "that multiple investigations currently considered unrelated form part of a single operational pattern."
He nodded once.
"Continue."
"I think the offender—or offenders—are experimenting."
"Experimenting with what?"
"I don't know."
"Why experimentation?"
"Because every incident becomes cleaner."
She stood almost unconsciously, moving toward the large map mounted beside his desk.
"They begin with isolated victims."
Her finger moved.
"Then controlled groups."
Another location.
"Then increasingly complex environments."
Another.
"The biological evidence decreases each time."
She looked back.
"It resembles optimisation."
Cassius said nothing. So she continued.
"The forensic absence itself is becoming consistent."
Still nothing.
"I think..."
She hesitated.
"I think someone is trying to produce a method of killing that erases itself."
The room remained utterly silent. Outside the window, rain began tapping gently against the glass. Cassius folded his hands.
"What kind of individual would accomplish that?"
She answered immediately.
"They'd need advanced biological knowledge."
He nodded.
"Continue."
"They'd be exceptionally intelligent."
Another nod.
"Patient."
"Yes."
"Systematic."
"Go on."
"They wouldn't kill impulsively."
She found herself thinking aloud now.
"They'd document results."
"They'd revise failures."
"They'd detach emotionally."
"They'd understand laboratories."
"They'd probably avoid attention."
She stopped.
"Someone young enough to adapt quickly."
"You believe they're young?"
"I think so."
"Why?"
She frowned.
"Older professionals accumulate habits."
"They become predictable."
"This person keeps changing."
"They learn too quickly."
Cassius became very still. Not dramatically. Simply...
Still.
For years he had sat through interviews with ministers, economists, generals, scientists and industrial leaders. Most searched for solutions. Very few searched for people. Cassius had spent almost his entire adult life believing civilisation advanced because once every generation someone extraordinary appeared. Not merely intelligent. Different. History bent around such people. Newton. Curie. Turing. Korolev. People whose existence redirected entire centuries. His responsibility, as he understood it, was simple. Find them. Protect them. Remove every obstacle before mediocrity crushed them. Most never received the opportunity. Not because they lacked brilliance. Because nobody noticed soon enough. He looked again at Elena.
"...young."
"...systematic."
"...emotionally detached."
"...biological expertise."
"...rapid adaptation."
Not a criminal profile. Potential. Raw. Terrifying. Exceptional potential. His pulse slowed.
Elena mistook the silence.
"I'm aware it sounds speculative."
"No."
Cassius spoke softly.
"It sounds internally consistent."
Relief crossed her face.
Finally.
Someone understood.
"I requested the biological archives because I think earlier government research may explain what sort of compounds could disappear before forensic examination."
"A reasonable hypothesis."
"But no one will authorise access."
"I can."
She stared.
"You can?"
"Yes."
He reached for the telephone. One brief conversation. No raised voice. No explanation. Only names. Reference numbers.
"Approved."
He replaced the receiver.
"They'll arrive within the hour."
Elena almost laughed.
"I've spent three weeks—"
"I know."
He opened another folder.
"I've been reading your requests."
She relaxed for the first time in months. Maybe she wasn't alone anymore. Maybe someone finally believed her.
Cassius, meanwhile, was no longer thinking about the reports. He was thinking about schools. Universities. Scholarship programmes. Science competitions. Medical laboratories.
How many eighteen-year-olds currently possessed access to advanced biological facilities?
How many could produce work beyond postgraduate level?
How many had disappeared beneath ordinary academic records because nobody had looked carefully enough?
Very few. Wonderfully few. His mind had already begun constructing lists. Not suspects. Candidates. He almost smiled.
If Trofanova was correct...
Then somewhere, perhaps frighteningly close, lived a mind capable of reshaping the biological sciences. Whether that reshaping proved miraculous or catastrophic depended entirely upon who reached that person first. He intended it to be him.
As Elena gathered her files, Cassius spoke again.
"Detective."
She turned.
"You've done excellent work."
She looked almost embarrassed.
"Thank you."
"I'd like regular updates."
"Of course."
"And one more thing."
"Yes?"
"If your investigation ever begins pointing toward someone..."
He paused.
"...exceptional."
She frowned.
"I don't understand."
"I simply mean..."
His expression remained unreadable.
"Do not allow reputation, age or circumstance to influence your judgement."
She nodded.
"I won't."
She believed it. Cassius believed she believed it. Neither realised that both of them possessed blind spots large enough to alter history. Elena believed innocence should be presumed until proven otherwise. Cassius believed extraordinary ability should be preserved whenever possible. One would hesitate to accuse genius. The other would hesitate to destroy it.
---
Lucian could recognise their faces from a little far away. Their fat-gorged expressions seemed to threaten to leak off their skulls onto the cloud-wetted pavement. He watched crowds of students - no, cattle, push and shove past each other similarly to the cement trapped greenery they were trampling.
Lucian waited a little longer before leaving class, as usual. He refused to be touched, contaminated, polluted by them. As if he was missing a vaccine against the highly prevalent disease of mediocrity. Vexis tolerated at first. He let others through, patiently, counting each fleshy body that passed by him like sheep. When he closed his eyes, he could envision a butcher knife instilling righteousness by putting the methane-producing ruminants up for meat, cleanly fulfilling their purpose in a singular motion.
But one inconvenience turned into ten, and Lucian refused to be late, even knowing the trains would be off by at least half an hour today due to the weather. Accepting the discomfort of being crammed alongside the livestock, he headed to the train station along with the swarm. Disgust modulated itself in his throat, first gaining magnitude, then dimensions, then weight. As it settled in his limbs, an announcement of an approaching freight train was made. It would not slow down. And yet the public pushed closer to the platform edge, refusing to listen to the guards. What improper, poor shepherds. Why were the unsuccessful commanding those with so-called potential? The entire social structure seemed decayed.
Lucian remained by his usual spot, where there was usually no-one at all and positioned where he already knew the doors would open. But the vermin aggregated all around into such a dense amassment that it could be compared to a can of sardines. One's shoulder touched his. One's rucksack bumped against his back. One's heel unknowingly sunk into Lucian's polished leather shoe. Repulsion. It struck like a single heatless lightning bolt across his mind. He jerked back his foot and stepped back away from the platform. The girl in front of him stumbled, her brunette locks fluttering wildly with the fall, the extensive platform noise covering her screams.
Someone attempted to call for help. No-one came forward to pull her up. It was bystander syndrome, and this time Lucian felt particularly uninterested. The train rushed in. Lucian opened his umbrella facing the side of the rail tracks. The girl got pushed down by the momentum, her head caught in the gap on the side as her skull cracked open, her clothes-layered form mangled, the viscera of what used to be a brain vomited onto the platform. The splatter hit several yelling grubs scuttling away from the yellow line - painted to prevent such circumstances but wiped invisible by the bandwagon effect.
This gave Lucian an idea; he could orchestrate accidents. Vexis let out a slow breath as he closed his umbrella and walked out of the station. He looked at the contacts on his phone. His mother couldn't drive. His father was at work. He called the number pinned to the top of his contacts list.
Kael showed up in the exact 15 minutes he promised, handing Lucian a helmed as they got onto the sturdy black motorcycle. Not flashy, but clearly cared for. Probably stolen. Eventually discussion loosely fell between the preferred quiet.
"The train broke down."
"Really? You wouldn't have called on such an occasion."
"I also would have needed a new umbrella."
"What happened to the one you just had?"
"Threw it out."
"Why?"
"Stained."
Kael hummed in response, as if visualising what the could have been.
"A pest was stepped on, and its sickness made a miniscule firework. I disposed of evidence at the site of action."
"What part of the maggot's guts? Seems unsanitary."
"Brain-"
Kael visibly flinched, eyebrows furrowing slightly. Lucian chuckled as he continued.
"-grey matter of the grey mass and all."
The conversation continued for a while, Kael almost demanding that Lucian provide excessively cinematic detail. When they got off at Lucian's house, Kael mildly questioned Lucian's sudden frustration and actions.
"The god has a temper?"
"I have a strong sense of justice."
Kael laughed, Lucian's poker face giving way to one of amusement.
"Any excuse would be appropriate, count it as playing domino."
Lucian nodded in approval sarcastically, focusing back on the mission ahead of them.
They had a world to cleanse.