Day 6: 10,048 Total 69,148

Good day for writing, despite several interruptions. Here's a fun, though short, snippet:

They made it to the office in early afternoon, surprised to find Del Vario there and looking happier than he had in days.

"We just had a break in the case," Del Vario said. "Tracked some of the new drug coming down the coast. Ranger is out getting the logs of what other ships have come into port lately. Heard about the new killing. Sorry you're not having as much luck."

Nic nodded and started past. He stopped and looked back at Eli. "Murder. Drugs. Music."

"Is that supposed to make some sort of mystical sense to me?" Eli demanded.

Nic shook his head. But he didn't move either. Eli sighed with frustration, started past.

"No. Wait. Drugs."

"I'd have to shoot him if he were my partner," Del Vario said. Then he winced. "Sorry. That was probably a bad joke, considering what's happened."

Nic waved even that away, and Eli suddenly realized that his partner really had picked up on something.

"Eli we need...."

"What? What do we need?" he demanded, finally losing patience.

Nic looked at him, blinked a couple times, and then turned to Del Vario instead. "Tell me about the drug you've been trying to track down."

"It's new shit," Del Vario said. He waved toward his computer and some report he had typed up there. We couldn't tell what the hell was going on, because it wasn't showing up in the autopsy reports. Apparently, it's very nearly impossible to detect. All we were picking up was the Dust it's mixed with, and we knew that wasn't killing the people."

"What does it do?" Nic said.

"The guy who just did the analysis on what we took him says it's a neural inhibitor, whatever that means --"

"No pain," Nic said. He touched his neck out of reflex. "And I'm betting it does more. I'm betting it kills the will, as well."

"Oh hell!" Eli said. He grabbed two chairs and pulled them over to Del Vario's desk.

"No will? What has -- shit. Of course. People don’t just stand still and let someone cut off their hands."

"Exactly."

"I'm sorry," Del Vario said. "It never occurred to me... We knew that there was some sort of suspension of free will. We had that from a couple people who had taken it and survived. They said they would have done anything someone told them, and not cared. Everything was free of pain and all they felt was a kind of ecstasy --"

"Any sound?" Nic asked, settling into the chair Eli pushed toward him.

"Nothing that they've said," Del Vario said. He still looked appalled. "Damn. It just never occurred to me that the two cases could be related."

"Well hell. Nic and I should have been thinking about drugs from the start," Eli pointed out. Nic nodded. But he also looked hopeful as he leaned toward Del Vario's desk. "It's just that nothing turned up in the autopsies."