Huda Abu-Orabi's Story

It had to be a Monday night. Great. She hadn't wanted any calls from the field office at all, let alone this one, but Huda Abu-Orabi had to deal with what she got, and this particular Monday, what she'd gotten was a call for four bodies found within less than a two block radius of each other. And as if that wasn't bad enough, the responsible parties had taken great care to leave each body along the banks of one of the waste-filled canals dividing Asteria into smaller districts and neighborhoods -- this particular canal snaking its way through the Downs.

Huda gritted her teeth and stamped her feet against the ground littered with slowly decomposing rubbish from the slums looming dangerously over the thoroughly polluted canal. She glanced at her phone, the device nearly slipping from her moist, clammy palm. Yellow lights flicked on in some of the windows -- many of them missing screens or blinds or both -- before flickering out. It was already eight in the evening, close to dusk, and the humidity was stifling. Huda looked back at the mangled body hanging by the ankles over the pedestrian walkway, the last of the four waiting to be taken down, and forcibly swallowed the bile rising in her throat.

"Pretty gruesome, huh?" The crime scene technician with the messy purple hair winked.

Huda gave him a disgusted look. "Shut up."

The Avorian's wings had been sawed off in what appeared to have been hacking motions. Her blood coated the rest of her body, though it had already dried. Huda hated summer in Asteria. Fucking heat only made the humidity ten times worse than it already was. She coughed, and brought her hand to her mouth and nose again. "Can we please hurry this up? We're done with the fucking photographs. How long does it take you people to get a fucking van already?" Huda looked over her shoulder, the cloth of her hijab all but soaked wherever it made contact with her skin.

And where the fuck was her new partner. Hell if Huda was going to miss Monday night primetime by herself.

Rohit Nayyar was shrugging his coat on as he jogged his way towards Huda, and he looked to be in a bit of disarray. He had received the call when he was halfway across the city, and traffic was murder trying to get here. Showing up late wasn't the best first impression he could have made with his new partner he noted with a grimace as he reached Huda.

"Agent Abu-Orabi?" he asked, seemingly unsure if he had the right person.

He offered a hand to her, before taking note of the gruesome display. The stench hit him next as bile rose in his throat, and he withdraw his hand. Exchanging casual formalities seemed suddenly less than appropriate.

"I ahh... what do we have so far?" he asked.

Rohit had immigrated to the TNG with the rest of his family nearly six years ago, but the remnants of his Volarian accent were still prevalent. Though with the high concentration of Shintenchi immigrants who made their home within Asteria City, he blended well enough.

"Four victims, that's what we've got. Dispatch didn't tell you?" Huda looked less than impressed. She straightened her shirt collar, annoyed that she'd have to do laundry on a shirt she'd worn for less than a full workday. Huda looked Rohit up and down with appraising eyes, though it was unclear what she was looking for precisely. "They're going to take them all back to the morque, and we can start canvassing the area for witnesses."

Rohit grimaced. "Witnesses in the Downs?" he asked. "We might as well ask the blind if they saw anything. I suppose it's going to be a long night."

The people who lived in the Downs weren't exactly known for their cooperative nature. Maybe they would get fortunate and happen upon a wayward tourist who had been in the area. The odds of the locals talking were slim at best.

Huda scowled. "Yeah. Witnesses. They had to have taught you how to talk to people in the Academy, didn't they?" At least, they had to have attempted. "Come on, I'll show you where I left statement paper. Please tell me you didn't just come straight from the office." Secretly, though, she hoped he had. It would mean Huda wasn't the only overworked agent in Asteria.

"Actually I-" he ran a hand through his hair and frowned. "Ah... never mind. I guess we should get started then," he remarked as he followed after Huda. "Are the other three as bad as this one?" he asked.

"Unfortunately for all of our stomachs, yep," Huda replied, digging in her heels with each step down the muddied embankments. Even twenty feet away, as the techs began the slow process of cutting the binds holding the corpse aloft, the stench of her decomposition barely diminished. "Don't speak so loudly -- " she gave a quick head motion toward a handful of onlookers just beyond the perimeter, craning their necks and steadying their cameras. " -- I'll show you the photos when we get to the car. I parked on the other side of that shithole." Huda nodded at the dilapidated warehouse saddled between shabby high-rises where the residents were doing their best not to look out the windows.

For the high level of police presence in the area, the convergence of NPA personnel around this particular parcel of land -- if you could in fact call it that -- was still somewhat of an abnormality.