Diana Ulrich's Psychiatric Reevaluation report following her promotion to First-Rank (Associate Special) Investigator, by Dr. Tristan Nimbley.

As of October 1st, I can confirm that Diana Ulrich is of sound mind and capable of acting within her full capacity of an Investigator. However, she appears to be socially detached and is likely to develop depressive behavior, therefore she will be reevaluated by the new year. For now, I've suggested to her about setting her Post-Traumatic Stress Negator at a threshold of 45%, and am recommending in particular that she should not face cases involving children or kidnappings until reevaluation.

1:34 PM October 11th

Diana

Dr. Beatrice 'Trixie' Lumlow was the head Shard Operator of Theta Unit, in charge of not only maintaining and producing our equipment, but deciphering and analyzing various contraband that comes up in our on-field assignments.

Top of her graduating class, she was a confident and skillful woman. Which made me much more worried when I saw her looking at the drone with both frustration and worry in her gaze. "You're all here, great…"

Our corporal, the level-headed Alex Lopez approached the drone. "What's the status on it?"

"I'm getting to that." Trixie said impatiently. "First of all, despite that the drone was entirely intact when Silvereye and Wraith retrieved it, I'm afraid it's internal Warpcode was nuked. Not even fragments left over, a clean wipe that's left no trace of a lead."

That explained the frustration.

"However, upon my analysis of it's various physical components, of which included a bomb—" Rick Lopez took a step back, "—and several weapons, however, most discerning was this."

She pulled us over to a large table filled with cataloged machine parts, and one of them glowed as the glassy surface highlighted its outline. "A nearly imperceptible transceiver according to it's structure. At first, I believed it could be how Skeleton was controlling the drone. But it doesn't line up, the architecture of it suggests that it's purpose lay within close-range transmission of Warpcode daemons to Neuroframes, however, I found another piece of tech that seemed to be receptive to the transmissions."

"Where's this receiver?" S.I Rick Lopez looked around on the table.

"It's there." Trixie pointed to a seperate table, one where a husk of a human was covered by tarp. "It was found within former First Investigator Kendrick Rorsche's brain, attached to the remnants of his Fractured Implant."

"How did it avoid MAL degradation, shouldn't it be nothing but sludge?" Corporal Alex's eyes grew wider as she found the receiver, studying it with her own cybernetic eyes.

Trixie nodded, frustration bleeding through creased eyebrows. "That. Is the question. The fact remains that Mr. Skeleton was sending signals to the MAL. For what reason, I cannot figure out. The self-destruction of his drone's internal coding has left no clues whatsoever. He's developed a way to safeguard tech from being corrupted by the MAL."

Silence covered us at that statement as we all had our thoughts trying to reason it, for everyone else it must have been impossible to even consider humanity controlling the MAL like puppets. But not for me, not when I'd seen Soul Killer do it… and they were both working together.

Just as Soul Killer took an interest in Mutations and biology, Skeleton was a voracious consumer of Shardware and engineering.If they had access to each other's skills, then their threat multiplied.

Machine and Mutations, brought together for the worst purposes.

If both of them had the ability to control leagues of MAL that they created based on the Revenant Serum, then the Fifth Swarm could end up being Westbrook's deadliest yet.

My father's words from last month repeated in my head.

That New California would take part in an orchestrated attempt at a MALtitan's life. Either The Infinite last seen on the East Coast or The Typhoon hibernating within the Pacific.

Everything The Uncaged was planning… all of their attempts to manipulate this city and NeoCore, everything was to manipulate that event. Soul Killer, Skeleton and Dogwhistler… and their ringleader. Mr. R.

Archangel had told me how The Uncaged were more known in Europe and Africa around fiftyish years ago, working under a character calling themselves The Sin which I'd suspected was another alias for Mr. R.

Everything was so jumbled and complicated that I didn't know where to begin untying this mess. NeoCore was supposed to have destroyed them, only for their influence to pop up in this continent as soon as it ended in another.

"Associate Ulrich." The corporal's sharp gaze flicked to me. "It's suspicious isn't it? That they were using Rorsche's body — and I wouldn't be surprised if Skeleton knew we were on Los Diablos' tail."

"It could've been a message to me." I confirmed the possibility. "Trixie, what was the timeline with Rorsche's Fracturing?"

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

Trixie sighed. "From what I've been able to gather, shortly after he was removed from our forces, numerous criminal groups were after him. As for now, we can only assume he played some sort of an informant role, or perhaps was a Delver for them, either way — he made enemies and without the protection of a badge he might have been desperate."

"He became an Iron Grade MAL." Rick nodded. "Despite being Bronze when he was in our force."

"His Implant was bought personally, so we didn't take it back from him after he had been removed from the force." Trixie continued. "Either he degenerated his own Implant, perhaps selling off his Warpcode with back-alley extractors to quickly cash in a profit, or he sold his Implant and downgraded. Both could have negatively influenced his compatibility — after early September, we don't have any records of him."

"So he couldn't have been Fractured for more than… let's say, forty days?" I drew on that conclusion. "How… what's the decomposition looking like for his body?"

I got some weird stares at that question, but Trixie shrugged, pulling up some charts. After a few seconds, her eyebrows raised, then she began to wave her fingers around those floating screens more frantically.

"That's strange." She whispered.

"What's strange?" The corporal leaned closer.

"Upon Fracturing, the human body is effectively dead, but the core of a MAL should slow down the decomposition rate by a factor of fifty for an Iron. Kendrick's body should only show less than a day's worth of decomposition — but in this case, he's already begun to bloat, indicating at least two days of decay. Either his Fractured self was stored in a highly warm and humid environment, or he was a MAL for nearly four months."

"Which is… impossible." Belle's surprised eyes found me. "Good catch, Diana."

I stayed silent, it was just a way to confirm my hypothesis. Rorsche was turned into a MAL after dying, an impossible feat. Yet, back in Soul Killer's lair, I had seen Stormspinner's corpse rise up as a Fractured.

"I'll do further testing." Trixie swiped the screens away. "As for now, I'm working with squads Delta and Omega to develop a Neurocuff that can bypass Skeleton's Datashields on his drones, it'll take a few months depending on how many more of these drones we can analyze, but it's imperative that we gain access to their data."

"I agree." The corporal nodded. "Is that all for now?"

"I wish I could tell you more, but if Skeleton's really selling human-controlled MALs then…" Trixie took a deep breath. "Then we have our work cut out for us. It would involve State-Central at that point. Even NeoCore."

Some of us left soon after, while others like myself and the corporal stayed on to ask further questions. Before I could get to Trixie, however, the Corporal stopped me.

"Associate Ulrich, I'd like to get your personal input in my office."

"Of course, Corporal Lopez." I followed her back to her office, a room second only to Staff Sergeant Morgan's personal workspace.

She relaxed into her chair, offering me a seat opposite her desk. "This damn job only gets more difficult. It's no damn secret that Skeleton was targeting you by using Rorsche's body, do you think you know why?"

"I…" I had a suspicion.

The corporal interlocked her fingers and placed them by her mouth as she leaned closer, her eyes sharp and deductive. "You once stormed into Little Requiem in pursuit of the late Investigator Indra Harmony and Officer Yvette Ingrid. Now, you know that they don't take police intervention lightly there. And so far, no one pursued you on the matter since it was hushed by your father. But I have to ask, what exactly happened?"

I tensed, but the main secret I had been keeping for so long was out. "Investigator Harmony was keeping watch on me on behalf of Kendrick Rorsche — that's a story long enough on its own. She'd tapped onto a private Neuralink call I was having with Yvette… Officer Ingrid, and through it discovered my Gold Implant. She then kidnapped her and held her hostage with Metal Heavens associates of hers, I fought through… and…"

Corporal Lopez nodded, not needing me to explain what came next. "You were the sole survivor… I don't need to know how that happened. I want to know how you got out unscathed?"

It was because Ripley and Mirage had saved my skin… but what she wanted to know was… "Skeleton was there, he sent one of his drones out to me. He allowed me safe passage out, as long as I promised him a favor."

Corporal Lopez didn't seem surprised.

"I didn't give him an answer, but either way, he let me through. Maybe this was him targeting me, or maybe it was to remind me that I owe a debt."

Corporal Lopez hummed to herself. "It could be either of those, or none of them. Mr. Skeleton has been an enigmatic figure ever since he made his waves in Little Requiem's civil war early in the decade, and he's remained as dangerous as ever. He's only gotten more active, and if he's really found a way to manipulate the MAL, or at least — Fractured Shard Adapters, then it's worrying… but… this seems wrong, doesn't it?"

"It does." I agreed.

"Skeleton's beyond careful, his approach has never been sloppy, and in the last few weeks, we have confirmed five drone sightings beyond Little Requiem. Either he's desperate, or this is all some calculation of his, he could be leading us somewhere he wants us to follow. Or perhaps hiding clues that we haven't yet seen."

The unmistakable Titanium in Rorsche's body was perhaps the biggest one, but I felt trapped with how much I should reveal to her. Then, maybe — I realized — that Skeleton wasn't leaving a clue to the police.

But to me.

Skeleton and Soul Killer were intricately linked, but the exact arrangement of their deal was unknown to me. After all, Dogwhistler had aided my escape, so there was already a degree of conflicting independence among The Uncaged's three puppeteers even if they fell under the same umbrella.

Until I knew more about how they worked, I wouldn't get a straight confirmation, but what little understanding I did have was enough to know that the only order all three of them followed was that neither me nor Ripley could be killed.

Kidnapped and tortured, that was fine. But Mr. R had enough influence to keep them in line, and it likely had to do with the fact that we were Source-Touched…

Perhaps Mr. R needed them, but didn't want them gaining access to Implants with a piece of The Source derived from The Infinite.

And the name of The Infinite's strange power was slowly growing clearer to me.

The Source-Shard of Change.

"What do you want me to do?" I kept my secrets close to me for now, there were no true allies here at the police force.

"Resume as normal, but actually, that reminds me. That case you were interested in, Fourth Precinct dropped it due to a lack of evidence."

That was codeword to say that there wasn't money to be gained from it. A case involving a mysterious disappearance of children from a low-income area called the New Houston Yards, the only common thread was that they were all orphans.

Corporal Lopez officially signed my name onto the case, and one other. "You'll be working with Investigator Rockfel, I believe he's familiar with the location. Has family there."

"Thank you, Corporal. I'll start right away."

"Before you go, Diana." I froze as she addressed me by name. "I understand you've undergone your psychiatric reevaluation and passed it, but… for your sake, you should really attend the therapy we're offering you. You've seen your report, yet you still showed an interest in this case."

"Because…" I slowed my breath. "It's important to me. Things like this can't wait. Or else, it'll be too late for them."

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