The Tests Of Special Agent Dash: The Case of The Fallen Angel

Chapter 1: My Friend

When I opened my eyes that morning, I had half-expected to find myself staring down the barrel of a sawed-off shotgun and a guy in orange monologuing about how I ruined his life, but it failed to fulfil my expectation. Instead, I got a metal box at the side of my head beeping an annoying pattern and a pressure-marked hand from lying on my side. I tiredly raised my right hand and slapped onto the clock, using my fingers to search for the buttons and pressing every single one. But the more I pressed, the louder the beeping got. Eventually I gave up bashing the top of the clock and pulled the plug all together. I buried my face back into my pillow, trying to gain back the drowsiness I had lost but it was ultimately futile.

"...... I really need to get a clock with a snooze button next time... and maybe with a fucking radio setting."

Groaning, I forced myself off my comfy queen-sized bed and headed out of the room. Scratching my head, I strode towards the bathroom to fix myself up. I stared at my reflection in the mirror.

"God, I look terrible."

And how. My flamboyantly coloured hip-length hair was sticking up with static and most definitely riddled with knots. The bags under my eyes was unmistakeable, blending together perfectly with my unpicked eyebrows, chapped lips and a drool mark on my left cheek. My eyes had the tinge of the borderline between crazed and murderous, complete with drooping eyelids. I was wearing an oversized blue t-shirt that hung on my right shoulder and black slacks, which was dirtied after being worn numerous times in the week.

"Hmph. I should really start doing my laundry every weekend instead of the end of every month. Bleh. I'll do it tomorrow. Not as if anyone would notice. Let's do this quickly and get done with it." I told myself.

I made short work of my look, combing my hair, brushing my teeth, washing my face and taking a quick shower without soap and changing into a bathrobe. I stepped out of the bathroom refreshed and blow-drying my rainbow hair. I threw the dirty clothes to the pile beside my bed and heading for the living room, where the kitchen was one and part of it. Turning off the battery-powered hairdryer and throwing it onto the bed in the other room, I ducked down underneath the counter and pulled out one of the sacks of ground coffee from the cupboard and plopped it onto the table.

"Now, was it 2 cups of powder for every six cups of water? Or the other way? Uh... Bleh. Hell with it, I like it strong."

Without any haste, I flipped open the coffee maker's flap and poured what I guessed was half the sack of powder into the filter, together with a few cups of tap water. I snapped the flap closed and started it up, staring at it through my still sleepy eyes and watched as it whirred to life. I soon got my pot, which I quickly poured into an awaiting mug and headed for the living room. I plopped myself onto the couch and held the hot mug with both of my hands, close to my face and letting me smell the fumes of the brown liquid. The caffeine in the coffee gave off such a strong scent that it was nearly enough to wake me up. I sipped it slowly, letting the warmth wash over me and invigorate my insides with its bitter taste. A classic morning for me.

"Mmm... nothing is better than a cup of coffee in the morning." I commented to myself. "And setting my alarm clock fifteen minutes before work was pure genius. More time to wake up and enjoy myself. And to add to that, no one to annoy me or boss me around. Pure bliss..."

~RING RING RING~

"...For about ten seconds."

The phone's ringing was almost as annoying as the alarm's beeping, just promising worse things than the latter. The guys at work rarely ever call me in the morning, unless its really important. Actually, one time I walked into work early one morning and found two of the agents arguing who would be the one to call me. I don't remember what the case that day was, but they really must be desperate if they were calling me up this early. Sighing, I put down the cup of coffee and shuffled over to the phone.

"Special Agent Dash," I spoke into the speaker. The background was filled with noise, but I managed to make out some speech.

"Special Agent Dash? You're actually awake?"

I was caught off guard by the dull, feminine voice that spoke those words. It was Probationary Agent Harriet "Derpy" Davis, one of the few female friends I had in the workplace. She worked in the evidence locker, which means that I almost never see her, but I did hear a lot from and about her. It appeared as if that every three days, she would wipe the 'Days Before Accidents" board clean with her pulling down one of the shelves onto a fellow Probie or accidentally setting off her gun and hitting them in the foot. She was so clumsy, she had her gun confiscated more times than any of us could possibly count. Yet she had one of the best figures I had ever seen. Maybe her advanced case of 'derp eyes', or strabismus as the eggheads in the office liked to say, had something to do with it.

I ruffled my hair as I answered. "Yes, Derpy. I'm awake. I set my clock forward to brew coffee."

I heard her sigh in relief. "Great, 'cause Senior Special Agent Sparkles wants you here right now... something about a case or something- CRASH! Oops! Um, Simmons? Could you help me get this box? Yeah, that one! Waaaaaayy up there! Yeah? Thanks! Um, so Dash, could you come in early today?"

I chuckled at the thought of the source of the crash, nodding to an imaginary Derpy and replying, "Sure, Derpy. I'll be there in ten. Have any idea case 'Tia wants me to solve?"

"Nope, but it sounds really serious. She came to me directly to call you and I don't know whyy she would call a probational..? CRASH!-Oops! You alright, Simmons? Don't worry, I'll get that shelf off you in a minute! ANY-way, the boss wants you in now, so could you get over here ASAP? Dang it Simmons, I SAID that I'll be with you in a minute! Thanks Dash!"

The line dial toned before I could respond. I pulled the phone away from my ear and put it back onto the dock. Whatever the Head Agent wanted, it must be serious.

Nobody gets within earshot of "Derpy Disaster Davis" without good reason.

I headed for the closet in my bedroom, quickly changed into my last work suit for that week, grabbed my gun, keys, coffee mug and dashed out of the house.

Unlike how television shows portrayed it, the FBI office wasn't as small made of just one small room filled with probies with doors that led more room that housed the main characters. Instead, it was a huge, bullpenned, two floored office with walls that were the colour of dull blue and the carpet floor colour of grey. Surprisingly, it was absolute chaos in the office that morning, which was weird since it was still five minutes before the cases started rolling in but it appeared as if even the evidence locker and mailroom probies were in the bullpen. It was so crowded that I found my mug spilling coffee everywhere and being stabbed by pencils before I even stepped out of the elevator door.

Amongst the crowd and bustle, I saw Derpy waving at me from the middle of the office. With much effort, I elbowed my way to her. I managed to get to the clearing, where Derpy was standing in the middle of with an ecstatic expression on her face . She obviously had run into trouble that morning; her skin was grey from the dust in the Evidence Locker, her bright blonde hair dulled and messy with her fringe covering her left eye and her long work dress dotted with spots of mould and dust. As expected of an Evidence Locker probie.

"Good morning, Special Agent Dash!" She greeted with a smile. Her eyes shifted away from the middle of her face, giving off a aura of innocence. "Bad traffic today, isn't it? On my way here earlier today, the radio was talking about a maniac driving in the wrong lane! Imagine that!"

"Oh yeah, I can imagine." I thought. Even with her advanced case of 'derp eyes', some bone-headed instructor actually gave her a driving license. For ten years, she managed to lose and gain back her license almost as many times as she had shot the other Probies in the foot. I suddenly felt a feeling of pity for the instructors that tested her.

"Yeah, traffic wasn't too good. But what's with all the people in the office today? I just saw Simmons and Samson actually working. What's going on?" I asked her as I sipped the remnants of what used to be my coffee.

"A case, Dash."

Right behind Derpy, whose eyes were suddenly rotating opposite ways, was the de facto leader of the agency. Although the heads of the FBI were the real bosses, it was her that relayed anything to them. Here, standing in all of her eggheaded glory, was the rising sun of the entire agency that people respected. Supervisory/Senior Special Agent Cynthia L. Sparkles. Like my Rainbow Hair, what stood out her out from the most was not only her last name, but her genetically dyed waist-length purple hair with an artificially dyed pink streak on her fringe. She wasn't only famous because of her spotless track record, but also because of her history that spoke of her special training in redacted documents of her wide range of skills as a markswoman, assassin and even a bit of bomb disposal training thrown inside of it. She was the ever-goody-two-shoes, by-the-book Field Agent that nobody dared to anger.

"Agent Davis, why don't you go down to Autopsy and help pack the van? I've heard that they need it." She said, her purple-lensed eyes still trained on me.

"Yes Ma'am!" Derpy did a mock salute and rushed off, leaving me and Sparkles in the middle of the bullpen clearing.

A few minutes passed in awkward silence. We just stood there, me taking little sips while she stood there stoically with an expressionless face. Soon, I found my mug empty of coffee and decided to break the ice. I put the mug on one of the tables in the bullpen and opened my mouth.

"...You still haven't found a team to take this bullpen yet, Sparkles?"

She looked taken aback at the casual question, before shook her head lightly.

"...No, not yet. There's a lot of trouble to forming one, you know?"

"Well, the trick for forming a team is finding perfect balance." I sat onto the tables, beside my mug. "You know what you need for it?"

She shrugged. "Tell me then, since you obviously know."

I nodded and smirked. "An exotic one, who can speak a lot of languages for those annoying international interrogations."

She leaned onto one of the cubicle's walls. "A courageous Field Agent, who isn't scared to pull the trigger."

"An egghead, whose knows everything so that nobody else needs to." I tilted my head to the side. "But... there's one more that's the most important."

She nodded in agreement. "Yes..."

"The Leader."

I nodded. "Correct. One that can keep her cool through ANYTHING, even when everyone's in panic and crying like babies. Someone that can take a gun and shoot a man's tongue off just to keep him quiet. A real Leader." I finished, kicking my legs away from the table.

We broke into a mutual smile and hung our heads down low. That was when I heard it. Absolute silence. My eyes shifted to the left and right, seeing the agents' eyes all focused on us. They were looking at us with observing eyes, as if we were a chemical reaction just waiting to explode. Oh no, not one of this things again.

"Alright, egghead." I said, jerking my head up. I felt the flinching of the agents around me. "Cut the crap. What was so important until I had nearly spilled coffee all over my last suit until it couldn't wait until this afternoon? And what case are the others so busy about?" I shot a look behind me, which caused the ones in my sight to flinch and restart their path with their chatter, as if nothing happened.

Sparkles sighed quietly. "Look at the screen."

I turned to my right, at the big plasma screen that was formerly laden with random emails and documents, now replaced with a picture. It was a grotesque creature, from what I could see. It was wearing a white jumpsuit, like a white version of prison clothing. The face of the creature was sharpened to show the becoming of what seems to be a beak, bright white feathers replacing where the hair would have been. Its eyes, oh the haunting eyes, were open and staring into the distance. All over its body, beige feathers with dark brown tips were sprouting from every inch of skin. But the worst were the wings. Long, bloody growths that were obviously forcefully spread and shown like a visual for the entire world to see. I estimated that it was around ten feet.

But when my eyes drifted to the right wing, I felt my empty stomach threaten to spurt out a gallon of coffee. I have decided that human blood and muscle stained on feathers weren't a nice combination. There was a knife, a huge abd obviously modified combat knife that was stabbed into the wing, pinning it to the ground like some butterfly on cardboard. The muscle and blood was splattered everywhere and caked the already bloody wings with muscle and arterial blood. Whoever stabbed this creature obviously had sick pleasure in doing it.

My stomach churning, I turned to face Sparkles with a baffled face. She took a deep breath.

"This...creature was found in a wilderness park." She pointed to the makeshift bandage of leaves and twigs on the same wing, merely three inches from the knife. "Beaten, shot, stabbed and most definitely dead. At first, they were going to send it to a classified research facility, but then they found a fingerprint on the... hand of it."

I then noticed that the entire office had become quiet once again and the feeling of the gazes of the other agents were back, just on the screen instead of us.

Sparkles suddenly turned to me. "Now listen, Dash. There may be a lot of weird stuff out there, but we have never seen anything like this. There is no record of any secret projects or any tests, which means that we have no idea what this means. We are completely in the dark. So... don't act too crazy when you see it."

I was fully confused now, but I could feel the feeling of dread run up my spine.

Sparkles pressed the clicker, pulling up an identity document. An Air Force document. The name was written there, clear as day. A name that I had not seen or heard from for four years, ever since the incident. The entire agency had their eyes focused on me now, I could feel it. With what I thought was the hardest thing in my life, I forced myself to look at the picture on the page. To my horrified face, a black-haired, unsmiling uniformed woman stared back at me. Underneath the photo, there was a repetition of her name.

Gilda D. Ryphon

My Co-Worker.

My Partner.

My Friend.