Germanicus
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Barcelona, Spain.
The subtle hiss of static echoed through the dark, mostly empty room. Mostly, it could be said, but for the man who had spoken calmly into his microphone and called out a murderer.
Powering off the bright screen of his laptop and packing it into a small backpack at the side of the table he had been sitting at, the man stood and quickly exited the foreign room, one of many “safe houses” he had set up during his work as a special member of the Guardia Urbana de Barcelona, the Barcelona Police force. Work, he thought with a small sigh, which would soon be ending shortly.
Placing the small green pack upon his back, he burst open the steel door of the small building in the old Gothic District and strut confidently into the paved streets of Barcelona. Thick, black hair rested neatly cropped upon his head, as well as upon his lip in a thick mustache. His face was broad and open, his nose curved like the fierce beak of an eagle, and his mouth was thin and often curled into something of a scowl upon his face. As he walked, his long strides and piercing green eyes conveyed a great air of command about him, while his powerful body and wide shoulders created the very image of strength. Yes, Ramirez Reyes, Spanish local of forty-three years of age looked every bit the police officer.
He did not, however, look the part of a descendent of L. Namely because he was older than L had been when he passed. That, he supposed, was a large reason he wanted to carry out this Quixote-esque task.
Ramirez frowned to himself as he walked down the street towards a café he liked to frequent for lunch most every day. His entire life seemed to have been characterized by one consistent motif; a blessing at the curse of mediocrity, security at the expense of obscurity.
He had been one of the older boys at the orphanage where the legendary L and his compatriots had been raised, the Wammy House. Being old at the Wammy House, you see, was never a good thing. To be old and still at Wammy House was to be thought dull and relatively weak of mind compared to the other children. Which, in Ramirez’s case, he thought with a snort of reluctance, was unfortunately true. He wasn’t L, not by a long shot. L moved past Ramirez’s position so fast that he might as well have still been in the cradle while doing so.
Ramirez reached the Café de Azula, sited very advantageously a short distance away from the Mediterranean Sea. The cerulean blue waters flowed on endlessly before the eyes of the tired police investigator as he sat down at a small, white garden table on the patio of the quaint little café. Greeted by a beaming, buxom young waitress, he curtly ordered black coffee and a sandwich. As she turned, however, he gave her a playful pat on her behind and grinned wryly at her. The waitress giggled in a high, shrill tone before scurrying off to get him his food. He chuckled lightly, thankful for being a regular; he would have never been allowed to get away with that asinine behavior anywhere else.
He reclined back in his chair, enjoying the warm, dry heat of the sun beating down on his skin and gazing out to the point where the endless ceiling of blue that was the sky came down to meet the elegant field of a similar shade that was the sea. The setting was very meaningful, he felt, deep and thought provoking. L would have chuckled at that, he knew, and Near and Mellow would have laughed at him outright. That was another thing that separated Ramirez from his fellows, he supposed; he spent too much time using his mind to day dream.
His thoughts wondered whimsically back to his time at the orphanage. Indeed, when he had heard of L’s death over twenty four years ago, he had been deeply saddened by the passing of an old comrade. They had never been close, but he had been the greatest among them, and to think of such natural skill and genius being lost to the world forever tore at Ramirez’s heart to this very day. Of course, that had been supplanted by the rage of not even being considered to replace L in the hunt for Kira. After all, he had been training the longest and had been actively studying the case however he could. Surely he deserved a chance over a…a…over a bloody thirteen year old! For the sake of the Madonna, he had been nineteen years old, and they picked a boy who had practically still been a toddler!?
His concentration broke as the waitress came up and placed his meal on the table, smiling at him once more. He smiled back genuinely this time and spoke in a deep, baritone voice. “Gracias, senorita.” With that, she departed, leaving Ramirez to mull over his meal. Flipping out a paper, he began thumbing through the headlines as he slowly nibbled on his sandwich, though he drained his coffee quickly and had to summon the waitress back for more. Only half reading the paper, he skimmed through reports of domestic disturbances, the sports page (Barcelona dropped another to Real Madrid, god damn it!), and the latest stock market crashes, but his eyes always drifted back to the same headline:
“Mysterious deaths spreading in China.”
Of course, these didn’t include the one that he had just witnessed not too long ago. It had been night in China, he had been sure of it when he checked the time of the interview he had watched online barely twenty minutes ago, but here in Spain it was still in the early hours of the afternoon. Tomorrow, an extension of this piece would add that Jin Tao, a prominent young Chinese politician who had been leading the charge for a more free market economy approach with less government restrictions in his country, would have died in the same strange way. Heart attack. It was a method of death that had recurred a few too many times to a few too many people in the exact same type of situation. Young, vibrant, politically driven, none too subtle track records of corruption and bribery. And most importantly, no family history or any other identifying causes which would have given logical reason for those men to die of a heart related problem.
Of course, no one would dare mention Kira. Not anymore. Even when it was obviously him once again.
Ramirez flipped the page he was reading, shaking his head lightly and scratching his chin as he did. No, not him again. This was a brand new Kira. A more foolish one, he had to venture; the man (or woman, he wasn’t that sexist.) had left too obvious of a pattern. The China connection was obvious, and since most of the men who had died were pro-free market, an outside enemy trying to eliminate obstacles to favorable trade policies was out. The fact that it was politicians which had no real relation to each other, had never even met or spoken to each other, ruled out factional politics, which almost surely ruled out another politician altogether. (The window for a traditional, command economy member of the old guard of Chinese politicians had a narrow window of possibility. Ramirez doubted it; most of them would have scoffed at the idea of killing anyone like that in any form that wasn’t a firing squad. Besides, they would have been far too visible to pull it off. They probably would have been caught already, before Ramirez even got in the first word.)
The cogs in his head were interrupted, however, as there was a sudden tug on his shoulder. Gazing up out of the corner of his eyes, not bothering to lower the paper, the waitress smiled at him nervously. “Excuse me, senor…the chef would like to have a word with you.”
At the word ‘chef’, he did lower his paper, and squinted at her askance. His voice was still steady but lower, as though he was testing the water to make sure it wasn’t too cold to dive in. “You mean the manager would like to speak to me?”
The waitress shook her head, smile wavering only for a moment under the scrutiny of his gaze. “No senor. I mean the chef.” He paused for a moment, looking out to the ocean and stretching his shoulders to ease his weary body, and, stifling a small yawn, nodded, beckoning her to bring him to his table.
The waitress tried to urge him to his feet, shaking her head in what could almost be called panic. “N-no senor, please, he insisted you come in to see him.” Ramirez chuckled, his grin frozen into place and his eyes shining like daggers. He raised his hands in a gesture about him and exclaimed, “But it is a glorious day out! He should share it with me, I must insist!”
The meager crowd around them looked over for a moment, angry mutterings filling the air as they cursed him for a drunken maniac. (Judgmental ****s; he was only a little drunk.) The waitress, not wanting to create a scene, merely nodded and scurried inside. Ramirez twiddled his thumbs, staring out to the sea once more and smiling before returning to his paper. Before long, he heard the chair opposite him reluctantly pull out and a small man sit down in it. He knew it was a small man, for he knew the man who had come to see him. The nervous, bug eyed little man with clean, well polished, round glasses on a thin face, with hands that always twitched nervously even if he was perfectly calm.
Ramirez waited, musing over an interesting study on the current pollution levels in the Barcelona air at the back of the paper, before the man cleared his throat as if to say ‘I’m here’. Ramirez brought one hand up and waved mockingly at his company. “I see you, Q, how are you today? Why, did you know, I’m reading the most fascinating piece right now…”
“Oh for Christ’s sake, R, will you shut up?” The pale, white man who sat across quipped in a nervous, irritated yelp. Ramirez, or R, as the other man knew him, pulled down his paper and twisted his head in a questioning fashion. “Ah, but my friend, if I don’t talk, how will we converse? This is a fine day to sit in silence, I do admit, mulling over the immaculate serenity and stunning passion of the day, but amidst the company of good fellows who haven’t seen each other in so long…”
Q reached out and lightly slapped the larger man in the face. Ramirez’s eyes blazed with fury for a moment before he shook his head and laid the paper flat on the table. The damned gremlin had beaten him, as usual, in the battle for who commanded the pace of the discussion. He couldn’t hit him back for risk of drawing unnecessary attention to them. “Is this really the best meeting place? After all, an agent of Kira could easily overhear us and tell our names to him. We’re as good as dead, and it’s all your fault, Q.”
“Cut the bull, R. The murders began two weeks ago. Kira doesn’t have a network yet, and if he does, they aren’t in Spain. His attention is only on China right now. Besides, we don’t even know each other’s names. They most definitely do not either.”
Ramirez looked coyly at his friend, smiling with all of the innocence he could muster. “Ah, but you know my name. I told it to you.”
“You shouldn’t have.”
“And I know yours.”
Q shook his head, frown deepening on his young, unattractive face. “Liar. No you don’t.”
Ramirez chuckled, wagging his finger knowingly at the man. “Oh, but I do. How much do you want to bet I don’t?”
“Nothing. I don’t gamble, and I know you don’t know my name.”
“Then why won’t you take me up on the bet? Sheesh, for a young lad, you don’t have much fun, do you?"
Q stared at R for a long time, obviously becoming mentally exacerbated merely at the conversation; the caretaker at the orphanage had once made the oh-so clichéd comparison likening them to oil and water. R preferred the more volatile combination of beer and liquor. Q rubbed his temples and moved his glasses down, probably questioning why he didn’t drown himself in the ocean and, more importantly, why he had to put up with such a buffoon. After a while, he met Ramirez’s eyes once more and seemed to become almost sympathetic in his tone of voice. “You know, Near is really pissed off right now. What in the hell were you thinking, R?”
R almost snorted, draining the last of his coffee and folding the paper curtly as he thought of the young upstart. “Let him steam; what do I care what the little prick thinks?”
“That ‘little prick’ is the most powerful detective on the world. Several countries, including this one, would lock you up if he was inclined to ask.”
“Which he won’t be. And which isn’t what you came here to talk about.”
Q took a small sip of water, sighing heavily before standing and looking out to the ocean, his eyes appearing pensive behind the faint gleam of his spectacles. After a moment, he spoke without looking at R. “No. N wants you to come with me. We’re to rendezvous at the new SPK headquarters and begin the investigation together, in which you are included only because you so foolishly barged into direct conflict with Kira.” R whistled sardonically, as though he were impressed. The SPK, the Special Provision for Kira, was the elite task force Near had headed up personally when he had caught the first Kira, twenty years ago. Now, apparently, he was rebooting it, and both Ramirez and Q were coming along for the ride.
“So?” He asked, beginning to seek a new angle to get under Q’s skin, “L began his investigation with a direct confrontation. N did the same. There seems to be some sort of successful precedent here.” Q almost openly gawked at him. “That’s absurd. Don’t even think of comparing yourself to N, and especially not to L.”
“Ah, of course, how could I be so…ambitious.”
“The word you wanted was impudent, R.”
“Semantics, my dear Q. Semantics. Will P and O be there?”
R felt an involuntary shiver as he said the latter alias, and he could see the same reaction coming from Q. O was…a bit of an intimidating subject. After a moment, Q shrugged. “O…yes, most definitely. He runs logistics now for N. P…not so sure. I hadn’t tracked her down yet. She returned our messages, though, unlike a certain someone,” he broke for a glare at R, who now stood next to him, looking out over the sea, “so it’s possible.”
R smiled at that; P and Q had both been young when he left, but he regarded them as some of his closer friends. O…O was an intimidating subject. He pushed that thought from his head, taking happiness as he could find it in the moment. It had been several years since they had all been together, the children of Wammy, the posterity of L. This was a bright and shining moment, and the middle aged gentleman, who hadn’t felt important to anyone or anything in any way for quite some time, held his fist in triumph towards the sky. He brimmed with new energy and vitality, and he grinned at his companion confidently. “Well, come on then, Q, we have a Kira to catch! Lest hell come before us, we shalt not falter, and with the Earth supporting the falls of our feet and the Heavens guiding our endeavors, we shall triumph over evil and tyranny! Fiat justitia ruat caelum!”
Q looked at the other man incredulously, baffled that he was so eager to rush towards what could be his death. “What in the hell does that even mean?” Ramirez grasped his friend with both arms in a firm embrace and gestured out towards the sea; the sun had slowly began to set over the sparkling waters of the ocean, and what seemed like thousands of vibrant lights radiated brilliantly across the water, the burning orange of vermillion of the evening sky playing upon the clear waters of the pristine waves. R’s smile grew wider, and he nodded in admiration to the natural wonder before them.
“That, my friend, means ‘Let justice be done though the heavens fall!”
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Author's Note: Well, that finally does it for the prologue. Yes, this ending does ramble a bit, but I like this part most out of the three. I intend to tell most of the story from the perspective of R, with occasional switches to Sima Cao, from part two. I'll link the previous parts of the intro later; it's pretty late and I want to get to bed soon. In case the question came up, yes, this is immediately after R spoke to Sima. As for anything else, I hope that everything that was supposed to be clear was. If you liked it, hated it, heard a really cool song on Pandora while you looked at it, please leave a comment below. Regardless to whether you read or not, have a splendid night.
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