The doors of the penthouse suite suddenly burst open, a wave of pure 80's rock-and-roll sweeping in with an entrance...
WEELLL HERE I AAAAAMMM!
Ian McGregor strutted in with the beat, lip-synching the performance perfectly...
ROOOCKKKK ME LIKE A HURRICANE!!
Coming down the minimal stairs into the center of the lavish foyer, he continued to strut, bobbing his head back and forth, completely lost in the world of 1980's glam-rock.
HERE I AAAAMMM!!
Ozzy stared on with something resembling confusion and disgust. Gaunt found his face remaining its normal fixed stare, ever-so-familiar with the antics of this particular physician.
ROOOOCCCKKK....
...Ian's face grimaced, eyes clenched tight, straining with the screeching note...
....ME LIKE A HURRICANE!!
With that, he slumped back into his casual stance, coming up to face them with a cocky smile. He suddenly realized the music was still going, and promptly shot his eyes to the doorway. The music immediately ceased, Nurse Ruby Piper coming in still holding the large 'boom box'.
"You missed the mark!" he griped. "You always miss the mark!"
"...sorry...I can't tell when you're done..." she mumbled fumbling with few switches on the portable stereo.
Ian grunted, turning back to face the bewildered Vanguardians. The doctor sort of half-nodded a greeting, while placing something resembling a cigarette into his mouth.
"What the...hell...was that?" Ozzy asked, McGregor lighting his smoke.
"Entrance theme, rite'..." McGregor shrugged. "Figured if I was going ta' be heading out into the field with you silly spandex-tarts, I needed my own entrance-theme."
"Do you see anyone here wearing spandex?" Edmund replied, folding his arms.
McGregor took a puff from his smoke, looking around casually. He looked back to Gaunt with a noncommital shrug.
"Speaking of fashion sense..." Ozzy remarked, looking McGregor up and down.
The doctor was not wearing anything resembling medical garb. In fact, he looked as if he had just come from some kind of nightclub. He was decked out in black leather pants, a muted crimson and purple floral-print silk buttonup with a wide collar, and black dress shoes. His short, thick sandy-red hair was spiked in small clusters, giving it that mussed-up, 'rock star' look.
"I came offa thirty-six-hours straight, six-hours ago..." he replied, half of his mouth holding the burning smoke. "...what do you want from me?"
"A full examination of the crime scene before your next set, if you please?" Edmund asked.
McGregor lightly bowed, and, instantly strode forth into the living room, the others following.
The living room spread forth in its tarnished mix of macabre and splendor. Strodding purposefully around any spots of blood or organic debris, he came to a stop in front of a squatting Adem Different.
"Bad luck." McGregor grimaced, staring down at the body.
Adem looked up at Ian with neutral eyes.
"Yes." he nodded.
"How long she been here?" the doctor asked, looking around at the damage.
"Hard to tell." Different replied. "I'm estimating eight hours, given the dryness of some of the blood spots."
"I was going to say seven, but you're probably right..." Ian nodded, squatting down next to the alien.
Ozzy started sniffing the air with a confused expression. His eyes finally settled on Ian.
"Are you smoking.....a joint?" he asked incredulously.
"...Doctor..." Ruby sighed, seemingly just now noticing he was smoking anything at all.
"And yor' problem is?" the doctor replied, Nurse Piper pulling the smoke from his lips, and walking towards the balconey.
"Well, for one thing...it's illegal..." Gaunt remarked with a cocked brow.
"So is breaking-and-entering...so is tampering with a crime scene..." McGregor responded, he and Adem still examining the body. "...I mean, when are you going to call the law?"
The Shadow Chancellor just grunted under his breath, turning away with a sigh.
"...have you noticed how the cranium splits off in these three main fractures?" Adem mumbled to Ian, completely ignoring everything else around him.
"Yes..." McGregor nodded thoughtfully, allowing himself to fall back into a sitting position in the air. He quickly crossed his legs in a neo-buddhist contortion, steepling his fingers in a relaxed posture.
"That specific impact point..." Adem continued, pointing along a certain area of the bloody mess. "...given a relative surface-area to pressure ratio..."
"...three-hundred-pounds of pressure..." Ian danced the numbers in his head. "...coming in at...how fast? Ten? Fifteen-miles-an-hour?"
"First guess is twenty." Adem nodded. "But, I'd need to get better stats on the pressure-resistance of this particular type of ceramic..."
"Mmm..." Ian thought. "...RUBY!!...call the office...have Cates and Rhimer bring some of the autop-staff in...we need to get this body in deep-freeze, stat!"
Ruby Piper was still across the room, lit narcotic in hand, trying to open the balconey door.
"Ugnt!" she grunted, pulling on the handle. "Just a minute!"
"I need it TODAY, Ruby!" Ian yelled back across the room.
"Hold...unggh!...on!"
Baxter, noticing her dilema, walked over to help her.
"Here...here..." he offered, taking both the joint, and the door in hand. "...I got it..."
"Thank you!" she said frustrated with the jammed door. She headed back across the room, whipping her cell phone out...
Ozzy wrestled with the handle using one hand, the other holding the smoking stick. He switched hands, and it didn't help. He then, without thinking, put the joint between his lips, using both hands. It was only a moment before he realized that he had just put a lit joint in his mouth, and quickly yanked it out, coughing a bit.
"...ugh..." he murmured with a grimace, the smell and taste of the substance bringing back memories of college. "...what the hell was I thinking back then...."
He crushed the burning part of the joint between his fingertips, shoving it into his pockets. Then, with both hands, began struggling with the handle. After another moment, he stood back from it, prepared to ram it through with his shoulder. He, of course, decided against it, since the door as mostly made of glass, it was a small balconey, and they were over fifteen stories up.
He looked the door up and down, confused...
"...how many Vanguardians does it take to open a door..." he mumbled to himself.
His eyes drifted down to the floor, and, that's when he noticed it. A chunk of white ceramic was lodged under the door, holding it tight. He knelt down yanking the masonry from its lodging, and brought it up eye level.
It was crusted with blood...
"Hey Diff..." he yelled across the room. "....catch...."
He tossed the piece of ceramic to Adem.
"Found it under the door over here...." he added, turning back to the balconey.
The doors opened normally, now. The strong, brisk late morning breeze washing in with fresh air. Baxter walked out, smiling with the bright, beautiful morning he was greeted with. He stood on the edge of the wide, granite balconey, leaning against the bannister with a deep breath of crisp air.
He looked around, studying the view from the extravagent height. Taking in the beautiful scenery around him, he breathed with a warm sigh.
"...must be nice..." he said to himself.
After a moment or two taking in the view, he remembered he had the small burnt roach in his pocket. Pulling it out, he prepared to toss it over the edge. He paused, looking at it for a moment, a small smile coming to his lips.
"...well....it wasn't all bad times...." he grinned, thinking about his drug-induced past.
He stared at the small marijuana stick, considering putting it back into his pocket for later, when he suddenly realized that the view of a nice, silver skyrise in his left peripheral vision, had become replaced with the view of a dark, smooth stomach, and bare navel.
It took even Ozzy's brain only nanoseconds to realize that for any navel to be in his peripheral vision at this moment, it would have to be standing on nothing at all.
"...I'm not going to like this, am I?" Baxter asked the small, burnt joint, before looking up.
And, there she was. A tall, African female, her body was curved and etched with a tensile muscle structure that devoured anything less than an absolute rock-hard definition.
"...moto-boi-que'..." she said with a thick Zimbabwe accent, floating on the air current before him. Her breasts and waist hidden by rough animal hide, her long, thick hair was braided in tight, heavy dreadlocks, tittering along the wind. Gold rings, and thin ornamental bracelts decorated her body, as three tribal hoops of metal around her neck.
"...uhh..." Baxter got out, staring up at the floating goddess with his mouth hanging loose in confusion.
She stepped forward in the air, coming over the bannister. With a single, casual motion, she reached out, gripped Ozzy by his upper left arm, and tossed him straight over the balconey with ease.
"SSSSSHHHHHIIIIIIiiiiittttt...." Ozzy yelled, his voice dropping away.
The tall woman grabbed the balconey door in one hand, ripping it from its hinges with a glass-shattering crack.
"Holy--" Ian remarked, as everyone in the room turned just in time to see her toss the free door straight at them.
Ruby screamed, even as Edmund flung his arms open, using what bit of shadow he could muster to envelope the projectile into the void.
"Take it outside! TAKE IT OUTSIDE!" Ian instantly barked, diving for cover.
The woman launched herself into the room, coming right at the ensemble....
"Ground floor!" Edmund yelled in a reply. He whipped the flaps of his overcoat open in a broad motion, a burst of shadow-matter enveloping the attacker and himself.
Adem brought his wrist-link up to his mouth...
"...all points...we have an issue..."
