The taxi ride was like a solitary journey. The vehicle itself was a rattling, diesel-chugging antique, yet the dashboard held a sleek, glowing screen displaying a map with digital icons. Outside, the city unfolded like a layered collage. A woman in a Victorian-style high-necked dress chatted on a slim, silver communicator. A horse-drawn cart laden with barrels clattered past a electric tram humming on overhead wires. The air streaming through the slightly open window carried the scent of baking bread, horse manure, and the sharp, clean tang of ozone.
Foster pressed his forehead against the cool glass, his mind reeling. Every detail was a fresh assault, a confirmation of his displacement. This wasn't just a different place; it was a different time, or a brutal fusion of several. He watched a street sweeper in overalls push a bristle broom, his movements in synch with the pulse of neon signs in a shop window advertising "Aetheric Lamps" and "Transcription Services."
_What world did I fall into?_
The question was a silent scream.
The taxi jerked to a halt. "Central Metropolitan." the driver grunted, without turning.
Foster fumbled with the strange, thick bills, handing over a few. The man took them without a word, and Foster stumbled out onto the curb, the trench coat flapping around his body.
The police station was a monument of grim authority. It was built from soot-stained granite, its architecture heavy and imposing, with barred windows and a massive, oak and iron door. It looked like it had been transplanted from the 19th century and told to stand its ground against the encroaching future. A flickering holographic emblem—a stylized scale of justice inside a gear—hovered next to the traditional carved stone shield above the entrance.
He stood there for a moment, an impostor before the gates. The weight of the gun in his shoulder holster, which he'd found while putting on the coat, was an additional pressure. He had never held one, let alone carried one. It felt like a dead thing strapped to his body.
_You are Foster Ambrose. You belong here._
He repeated the mantra, forcing his back to straighten, and his breathing to slow. He pushed the heavy door open.
The inside was a den of sound and smell. The clatter of typewriters against the electronic beeps of data terminals. The air was thick with the scent of old paper, stale coffee, cheap cologne, and an underlying tang of copper that he suspected was bleach trying to mask blood. It was the smell of bureaucracy and violence, mixed together.
He took a few steps into the bustling main room. Uniformed officers moved with purpose, their boots echoing on the worn linoleum. Civilians sat on hard wooden benches, their faces etched with worry or defiance. His eyes scanned, trying to find a desk, a cubicle, anything that might be his.
"Ambrose."
The voice was like a shard of ice. It wasn't loud, but it cut through the place with effortless authority.
Foster turned.
Captain Hart Hanson stood by an open office door, his frame filling the doorway. He was a man in his fifties, with hair the color of granite and eyes to match. He wore an impeccably pressed, dark grey suit that seemed out of place amid the chaos, a bastion of cold order. He held a ceramic mug in one hand, steam curling gently from the coffee. His expression was utterly neutral, but his gaze was a physical weight, pinning Foster where he stood.
"You're late." Hanson said. The words were simple, a statement of fact. There was no anger in them, which was somehow worse. It implied that disappointment was the baseline.
Foster's throat went dry. "Sir. I—"
"The Davidson report was due on my desk an hour ago." Hanson took a slow sip from his mug, his eyes never leaving Foster's face. "See that it's there before you do anything else. Including getting coffee."
It wasn't a suggestion. It was a directive. Hanson turned and disappeared into his office, closing the door with a soft, definitive click.
Foster was left standing there, his heart hammering. The Davidson report. He had no idea what that was, where his desk was, or even how to work the bizarre fusion of typewriter and terminal he saw on every other desk.
"Rough night, Foster?"
He jumped. A woman with sharp, intelligent eyes and dark hair pulled back in a bun was standing beside him, a stack of files in her arms. Lieutenant Martha Holmes. Her name surfaced from the fog of Foster's inherited memories, accompanied by a sense of respect and a slight wariness.
"You look pale," she observed, her gaze missing nothing. "And you're staring at your desk like you've never seen it before."
He forced a laugh, the sound brittle and foreign. "Just… a lot on my mind, Martha."
She nodded slowly, not quite convinced. "Well, get the report done. The Captain's in one of his moods. Desk is where it always is." She gestured with her chin towards a cluttered workstation in the corner, then moved off, her attention already shifting to a map on the wall dotted with colored pins.
Foster navigated the room like a man walking through a mine. He reached the desk. It was a disastrous zone of paper stacks, empty coffee cups, and one very modern-looking data terminal. He sank into the chair, its springs groaning in protest. Where to even start?
"Looking a little lost, Officer."
This voice was different—lazy, almost bored. A man in a rumpled lab coat over a shirt and tie was leaning against the partition of his cubicle. He held a half-eaten pastry in one hand. Ben Frank, the coroner. His eyes were heavy-lidded, but there was a sharp intelligence lurking in their depths.
"Just… the Davidson thing," Foster managed, hoping it was enough.
"Ah, the 'mugging gone wrong' right?" Ben said, making air quotes with his pastry-free hand. "Such a creative classification for a man who had his throat torn out with what appears to be… non-metallic implements. Very messy. Very interesting." He took a bite of his pastry. "Report's probably in your 'In' tray. Unless you filed it in the circular one already." He gestured vaguely at the trash can.
Foster followed his gaze and saw a thick folder marked "Davidson." He grabbed it like a lifeline. "Right. Thanks, Ben."
Ben gave a noncommittal grunt and ambled away.
Foster opened the folder. The first thing that greeted him was a glossy, 8x10 photograph. A man in an alley, his head was tilted at an impossible angle, and his neck was a ruin of shredded flesh and splintered bone. Foster's stomach lurched. The violence was visceral and shocking. But beneath the horror, a colder thought formed. Torn out.
It echoed in the dark chamber of his memory. The taloned hand. The ripped-out heart.
He shoved the thought down, his hands trembling as he fumbled with the terminal. After several agonizing minutes of trial and error, he managed to finish a document template. He began to type, his method painfully slow. He fabricated observations, leaned heavily on the preliminary notes from the beat cops, and prayed it would pass the captain's requirements.
He was so engrossed in his desperate forgery that he didn't notice the young woman approach until she was right beside him.
"Hey, Foster! You look like death warmed over! Here."
Another ceramic mug filled with steaming, black liquid appeared in his line of sight. He looked up into the bright, open face of Eliza Ramirez, the department assistant. Her energy was a stark contrast to the grim atmosphere.
"Coffee?" she asked, beaming. "You look like you need it. And Neil said to tell you the security footage from the Davidson alley is a bust. Total static for the three minutes before the incident. Weird, right? System was fine everywhere else."
Static. The word landed with a chilling weight. It wasn't proof, but it was an anomaly. A silence where there should have been evidence.
"Thanks, Eliza." he said with a hoarse voice. He took the coffee. It was bitter and strong.
"No problem! Gotta run—evidence log is a mess today!" She skidded away efficiently.
Foster took a sip of the coffee, the heat searing his throat. He looked around the bustling station. At Captain Hanson's closed door. At Martha Holmes efficiently directing traffic. At Ben Frank, the bored coroner who talked about torn-out throats over breakfast. At the kind, oblivious Eliza. At the ghost of Neil Humphrey, the tech guy who found static.
He was surrounded by people. He was wearing a uniform. He was sitting at a desk.
But he had never felt more alone. Or more certain.
The deaths hadn't been random. This world wasn't just strange. It was layered, and something dark was beneath its cobblestone and chrome surface. The blood-stained notebook, the fatal gate, the torn throat in the file, the impossible static on the tape—they were all connected. They were threads, and he was suddenly, terrifyingly sure that he was the only one who could see the pattern.
He finished the report, a hollow piece of fiction, and placed it on Captain Hanson's secretary's desk. Then he walked back to his own, his movements now deliberate. He opened the bottom drawer. Beneath a stack of old forms, his fingers found it. The blood-stained notebook from his bedroom. He had brought it with him, a terrible artifact.
He ran his thumb over the stiff, rust-colored stain.
He was a police officer now. But his first, his real case, wasn't in any file. It was the mystery of his own death. And it was just beginning.