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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Wulf Ratbane" data-source="post: 4069735" data-attributes="member: 94">“Calm down,” Grim said. “Let me triangulate the signal.”Cutter watched Gunner and Grim at work, his ears perked.“Dammit,” Gunner said. “This girl was into something really bad.”“Ready the scalpel and the specimen jar,” said Grim. “Let’s try to maintain the integrity of the sample if at all possible.”There wasn’t much to work with—certainly not even enough to see with the naked eye. But there definitely was some unusual biomass in those deep scratches.“I don’t think we need a whole lot, Grim,” said Gunner, fumbling with the Medicae’s tools.Grim eyed the pint-sized specimen jars. “Judging from the size of those specimen jars, Medicae Sannd was hoping for plenty more.”Gunner carefully scraped the scalpel through the scratches and lifted a bit of biomass towards the auspex. “What does it say it is?”“Anomalous tissue,” Grim answered. “Ok,” Gunner said. “So something tore these gouges in the wood with its flesh?”“Do these scratches look like they were made with human fingernails?” Grim asked.“God, I hope not.” Gunner shuddered. “Let’s get out of here. We need to track down the sister.”“You think the sister suffered the same fate as the brother?” said Grim. “Was his tissue anomalous?”“Only the parts that had been replaced,” growled Cutter, nervously opening the door a little wider to get a better look at the hallway. “I really doubt her fingernails were replaced. Come on, let’s bolt.”“The question now,” Grim announced, “since those scratches look inhuman but presumably something with human tissue, is this: Was the room tossed in a search or in a rage?”“Rage,” said Gunner. “Nothing was opened.”“Let’s check the dead guy’s hab,” said Cutter. “See if we can find a matching sample.”Gunner nodded and checked his data slate. “8th floor.”Cutter pushed the door open and stuck his head into the hallway. “All clear. Follow me. Quietly.”Cutter moved back into the hallway, stalking forward with practiced skill. It occurred to Gunner that he wouldn’t want to have tangled with Cutter even before his training with the Officio Assassinorum. Cutter was prime raw material; the Inquisition would make a deadly killer of him yet. Gunner wondered what they’d make of him. He certainly hadn't made anything of himself.They made their way down the stairwell towards Saul Arbest’s hab. Cutter was still in the lead. His hooves were silent and his ears twitched alertly. He motioned Gunner forward to confer. “Which address?”Gunner pointed at the wall on their right. “He’s right here, on the corner.”Grim moved up to join the conversation. Whatever it was he had intended to say was lost: His vox suddenly went on the fritz, turning his whisper into a screech of feedback that howled for what seemed like an eternity before it finally choked off into static.Gunner scowled at Grim but Cutter was, if anything, more alert. Through the wall his ears picked up a noise: a soft thump, like something dropping to the floor. He held up his hand to silence them, and pointed at the wall.“Company,” he said. “Did you hear that?”“No,” said Grim, sneering—and eager to shift attention away from himself. “We have human ears.”Cutter ignored him, readying his rifle instead. Gunner quietly cocked his shotgun. Grim made a pretense of checking over his lascarbine.“Just wait here,” said Cutter. He moved down the hallway as quietly as possible to peek around the corner. His ears twitched nervously, but he heard nothing more. Looking down the hallway, he could see that here, too, the door was slightly ajar.And like the sister’s hab, the door opened into the room. “Figures,” he muttered. “Can’t see jack from the hallway…”He moved forward steadily, hunting rifle up and ready, sights trained on the door. In one deft motion, he moved across the doorway to stand on the hinge-side of the door, where he could see into the room. Through the crack, he could see nothing more than the stovetop range. Same layout as the sister’s, he thought. He cautiously reached forward to push the door open with the barrel of his rifle. The door creaked open. Slowly, inch by inch, more of the room hove into view. Now he could see the refrigerator… The crapper… The sink… The door swung a little further. He saw a chair, and behind it, the floor-to-ceiling light panel was on. The door was nearly open ninety degrees when Cutter finally stopped and motioned to his two colleagues, who had reached the corner of the hallway and were watching him intently.“I’m gonna RUSH it,” he said—eventually conveying his meaning through a combination of mouthing the words and crude gestures. “Yes?”Gunner and Grim looked at each other, and nodded their assent to Cutter.Cutter slung his rifle, drew a revolver with each hand, and looked again towards Gunner and Grim—perhaps hoping that one of them would stop him, but their look only seemed to encourage him.One… Cutter leaned towards the door.Two… He rocked back on his heels.Three! Cutter dashed into the room, shouldering the door aside. The silence was shattered by the sound of a large-bore, cheaply-made gun. Cutter was struck solidly, center of mass. The blow knocked him into the range and he nearly lost his feet as he spun to face his attacker.It was Lily Arbest—no doubt about it—crouched behind the bed, and holding a huge pistol in two trembling hands. She looked nearly as shocked at having shot Cutter as Cutter did at having been shot.Before Cutter could gather his wits, she screamed at him and squeezed off another shot. “Die you mutant goat-f*cking sonofabitch! This is for Saul!”</blockquote>

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