The rain over Linden never truly stopped.
Some days it belonged to the clouds, other days it belonged to the gutters. Tonight it clung to the windscreen in long, lazy streaks, blurring the city into smeared bands of neon and shadow.
Detective John Fulger sat behind the wheel of his unmarked sedan, engine idling low. The cabin smelled faintly of old leather and cigarette ash, a familiar mix that grounded him before every job. He didn't need music, just the steady percussion of rain on metal and the occasional hiss of tyres on wet asphalt outside.
The case file lay open on the passenger seat. Three main sections were highlighted. Each with notes, testimonies, and information beneath them.
Brad Hopkins.
Missing.
Pulse.
The pages were thin, but the weight of them was heavier than it looked. Fulger's steel-blue eyes scanned the contents, memorising the details he hadn't already committed to memory.
A name stuck out. Magnus Barlowe. No priors. No reputation worth mentioning. But Fulger knew better. In Linden, the nobodies were usually the ones hiding something.
He reached for the ignition, letting the wipers clear another slice of the rain-choked world. Then he checked the mirror. Same lined face. Same unblinking stare.
Fulger pulled into traffic, the city's glow washing across the dashboard as he headed for Barlowe's address. '197-200 Harrow Street, Renfield'.
"Name's Detective Fulger," he said to himself.
A ritual. A reminder. The man in the rear-view mirror didn't argue.
A familiar face. Weathered and angular.
The kind of face that belonged in a black-and-white photograph, left out in the rain. Silver-blonde hair framed his steel-blue eyes that met their reflection with all the warmth of a cracked freezer door.
He wasn't looking to admire himself.
It was confirmation.
To remind himself of the badge, of the purpose.
The why.
It was ritual, really. Say the name. Ground the identity. Lace up the gloves. Go another round.
Rain skittered across the windshield.
He parked the car on Magnus's street.
The streetlights outside fizzled through the moisture in dull amber halos, smearing the world into something soft and useless. Fulger blinked it away, focused on the case file lying on the passenger seat like a silent passenger.
He'd driven halfway across Linden to shake a nobody out of his world and question him.
Standard practice. Shake the trees, see what rotten fruit drops.
He killed the engine, stepped into the wet and dreary evening.
The rain dampened his hair and he swept it out of his eyes.
The city smelled like petrol and dead leaves. He lit a cigarette with a thumb-worn lighter, cupping the flame from the wind.
Expensive habit, but useful.
Certain people trusted you more if you smoked. Especially the liars.
But Fulger had been smoking long before joining the force.
He took a puff from his cigarette and looked at the building before him.
The apartment complex was one of those newer builds. The sort that were put up with no care or attention to the materials used in construction.
One day, there would be an empty space, then the next month, another complex.
Soulless, tall, and grey.
As he stepped inside, it reeked of synthetic carpeting and unknown liquids. The kind of place people passed through, not lived in.
The elevator whirred mechanically as it opened. Fulger stepped in, eyes scanning the buttons like they were suspects.
He looked down at the slip of paper folded between his fingers. Apartment 117. Easy enough.
A short old woman entered behind him with her grey hair in curlers and wearing a floral-print cardigan.
She glared at the cigarette clinging to the corner of his mouth.
She jabbed a wrinkled finger at the NO SMOKING sign on the wall.
Fulger took a long drag, then plucked the cigarette free with two fingers. "Apologies, ma'am." He flashed the badge from inside his coat as if it excused his actions.
It was old, dulled, the kind of metal that had forgotten it was ever gold. The kind of metal that matched a man like him.
He snubbed the cigarette out on the sole of his shoe, pocketed the butt, and gave her a cold smile that didn't quite reach his eyes.
The elevator dinged at the next floor. He stepped out, the woman's disapproval echoing behind him like a cough in a church.
The hallway was quiet.
The carpet had stained from god-knows what and the corners of the ceilings peeled with the damage over time.
He walked slow and deliberate, heel to toe.
His coat swayed with him. So did the Glock 17 in his shoulder holster. Loaded. 33 rounds.
Heavy enough to notice, light enough to forget until it mattered.
"Routine questioning," he told himself. But his instincts were louder than that. The gun weighed differently today.
He stopped at door 117 and knocked.
No answer.
Then there was movement. The sound of skin against carpet.
A grunt.
Something knocked over.
Shuffling feet.
The door cracked open.
Magnus Barlowe. Dark hair. Tall and heavy build. Headset still clamped on. Eyes glazed like old jam jars until they met Fulger's, and something sparked behind them. Fear, maybe. Or recognition.
Fulger remembered the citizen profile: No priors. WcNonald's manager. Supplements their income from streaming and freelance coding gigs. No decent skills to take note of. Nothing ranked highly enough to matter.
Clean on paper. But paper burns easy.
"Hello?" Magnus said. "What do you need? I'm in the middle of a game."
Fulger's voice was even, clinical. "Magnus Barlowe. I'm Detective Fulger. Linden PD. Just a few questions."
Magnus blinked. "Have I… done something?"
That flicker again. That twitch behind the eyes.
"Have you?" Fulger asked.
"What? No! I've never even had a parking ticket!"
Fulger tilted his head. "Good. This isn't about you. It's about Mr. Hopkins. A friend of yours."
Magnus's expression soured, like someone stepped on a long-dead memory.
"Brad? Is he in trouble?"
"He's gotten caught up in something. Serious. When did you last see him?"
Magnus scratched the back of his neck, then ran a hand through his blue mop. "Six months? Maybe five. He was acting… off. Asked to borrow some money. I didn't have it. He left angry."
"Desperate... Erratic..." Fulger took note in his mind. "Did he say where he was going?"
"Not exactly… But he did mention something. He was talking about the glory of Pulse." Magnus chewed his lip. "That's all I remember."
'That again? Pulse...'
Fulger stared at him for a beat too long. Not blinking. Not reacting. Just absorbing information.
"Nothing else at all?" Fulger asked, raising an eyebrow.
"Nothing, sir."
"Thank you, Mr. Barlowe. I doubt I'll need to bother you again."
He turned to leave. The door creaked closed behind him.
But just before it shut, something caught his eye.
A ginger cat. Watching him from the hallway inside the apartment. Its eyes glowed, just for a second, with an uncanny sheen.
Not from a lamp. Not from a screen.
'A reflection? From a game? Maybe.'
Probably.
He dismissed it.
He always dismissed it.
If it wasn't important, it didn't need explanation.
In the elevator ride down, he pressed the button. The floor hummed beneath his boots.
"Pulse…" he muttered aloud.
The word had surfaced before. Hooked like a splinter beneath the skin of half a dozen cases.
He'd interviewed addicts that were dragged out alleyways that were screaming about it.
They were ecstatic, broken, blissed out of their minds and begging to go back.
Back to where, the police department had asked them, but they always answered the same.
"I don't know." Fulger repeated, remembering their responses.
No substance. Nothing ever came up in their bloodwork results. No known compound. Just... something.
Something that didn't show up on the test but lingered in the eyes.
In the marks on their arms.
In the worship in their voices.
"What the fuck is it?" Fulger asked himself.