Macjucuma

 The investigator reaches out, but not at random. It looks for a path, and doesn’t find one. It looks for a path, and doesn’t find one. It looks for a path and finds one. Not there, not quite, but close. Two points define a line. One point is alive, and one point is death. Neither came from here. Bang those rocks together and see what sparks. See what burns.

Macjucuma

Mecjucina

Macjicoda

Macjicela

Mocjacana

Macjicota

Macjucava

Mecjocoda

Mucjacola

Mucjacoda

Micjecova

Mucjicina

Macjicoda

Micjucuna

Mocjaciwa

The investigator is the tool for finding what is missing, and so it exists. All the rest is artifact. The craving for beer. The hat. The memory, and the humor, and the weird half-fondness half-contempt for something named James Holden. The love for a woman who is dead. The longing for a home that will never be. Extraneous. Meaningless.

The investigator reaches out, finds Holden. It smiles. There was a man once, and his name was Miller. And he found things, but he doesn’t anymore. He saved people if he could. He avenged them if he couldn’t. He sacrificed when he had to. He found the things that were missing. He knew who’d done it, and he did the obvious things because they were obvious. The investigator had grown through his bones, repopulated his eyes with new and unfamiliar life, taken his shape.

It found the murder weapon. It knew what happened, at least in broad strokes. The fine work was for the prosecutors anyway, assuming it went to trial. But it wouldn’t. There were other things the tool was good for. The investigator knew how to kill when it needed to.