Kingdom Lost - Episode 1 "Pilot"

[Shalimar]

"Just a figure of speech Danny boy. I'm just bored with this spying on over-weight 40 something insurance guys while they're diddling the babysitter. I want something more interesting, I was trained to be a detective, I want to detect." she says, fiddling with her tattoo of the Yin-Yang that her short sleeve has left bare.

"Maybe we'll luck out and the woman will want us to find some-one and not have to watch a peep-show. Anyone want to lay odds?" she asks of her fellow detectives.

 

[barsoomcore]

"Yeah, uh, you're not the only one who's a little bored."

Dan heads over to the coffee machine, offering Alicia a wave as he passes. To Sakura's offer for a bet:

"I don't think so, Sakura. It's Monday, right? How much fun could it be?"

He pours a cup and takes a sip. It's actually pretty awful coffee, but somehow he figures that private detectives are supposed to drink terrible coffee. Sam Spade probably did.

 

[Shalimar]

"Aww, thats not a good attitude to have, I mean how can you have a good day without thinking you will?" she ask, punching him playfully on the arm.

"Hey, I have a favor to ask of you Danny, could you listen to my bike, its sounding kind of off lately, I'll owe you dinner tonight, what do you think?" she asks, tucking her hair behind her ear, watching him intently her tongue poking out the corner of her mouth.

 

[barsoomcore]

Dan swallows black coffee and coughs a couple of times. Dinner with Sakura was not on his list of likely Monday night activities. Not that he exactly minded, but she had tattoos and green eyes and didn't even come up to his shoulder and they worked together and...

Okay, she intimidated the heck out of him. He knew that. He thought it every time he spoke to her.

"Yeah, sure, Sakura. Maybe this afternoon if, uh, you know... What does it sound like? The timing's off? Or something?"

 

[Shalimar]

"Uh, I don't know, she just doesn't purr like she normally does, she just sounds off, like somethings not right with her." she says with a shrug, and an embaressed grin. "I don't really know all that much about bikes, thats why I need the help."

"Hey, do you know anything about those murders going on up at Pepperdine? Me and Dex were just arguing over whether or not I could solve the case."

 

[Tokiwong]

"Uh, I don't know, she just doesn't purr like she normally does, she just sounds off, like somethings not right with her." she says with a shrug, and an embaressed grin. "I don't really know all that much about bikes, thats why I need the help."

"Hey, do you know anything about those murders going on up at Pepperdine? Me and Dex were just arguing over whether or not I could solve the case."

Alicia sighs, shaking her head, "Your morbid Sakura, why are you so excited about some murder at Pepperdine anyways, I mean from what I saw on the news it sounds like a psycho did it. Probably some psycho Satanist listening to that Marilyn Manson crap..."

 

[Shalimar]

"I am not morbid, I just happen to think that i could solve it better then some of the cops that I know." Sakura protests innocently, "I know a few of them that wouldn't be able to poor water out of a boot if the instructions were on the bottom." she says grinning, "then again, there are some good ones." she says thoughtfully emphasizing the word some.

"Its the kind of case that could have got a beat cop into plain clothes." she says wistfully. Shrugging, she grins and flops lazily back onto the top of her desk, a desk that was the cleanest in the office for just that reason. She let her foot trace lazy patterns in the air above her chair, she was the kind of person who simply had to be moving something, a finger, a toe, something, anything. The best way to torture the girl would be to tie her up and not let her move.

"I don't buy inot the stereo type. Its probably some white guy in his mid-thirties who just got dumped, he probably is well educated, yadda, yadda, yadda. At least thats what the cops probably think. Thats what they always think."

 

[barsoomcore]

"Uh, Pepperdine, that's up towards, Malibu, isn't that it? Along the Pacific Coast Highway?"

Dan shrugs and drinks some more bad coffee. He goes to his desk, next to Dexter's, and gets the computer turned on. While he's waiting for it to boot up he stares out at the parking lot, half-listening to Sakura, half-wondering if he can get that 386.

More out of a desire to be doing something than any real interest in the case, he types "Pepperdine Murders" into Google to see what comes up.

 

[JimAde]

"Well, I don't know much about this, Sakura, but even in california most murderers are, in fact, white guys in their twenties or thirties."

Seeing Dan get a cup of the nasty office coffee, Dexter thankfully takes another sip of his excellent Sumatran.

"I'd like to get a look at these 'satanic' symbols they're talking about, though. If it is just somebody trying to throw red herrings, they've probably got the symbology all wrong."

Dexter thinks for a moment, then starts typing quickly at his computer. In a few moments he is looking at one of his favored anthropology sites. It has a comprehensive catalog of occult and mystical symbology, cross-referenced by region and era. He has long since learned to avoid the amateur, new-age symbolic catalogs and stick with academia. People are never a reliable source for information on their own religions.

"Of course, I can't imagine how we'd get access to that kind of information," he says, smirking and glancing at Sakura from the corner of his eye.

 

[Shalimar]

Sakura shrugs, "I guess I could ask around, but I am persona non grata, I think I really pissed that Captain off, I don't know why, I only cursed him off the one time, I mean, its not like I did anything wrong, not really." she says with an innocent grin.

"So like, how long till this lady gets here, I can't stand this siting around and not doing anything." she asks as she hops up and starts pacing around the desks.