Children of the Mind: The Detectives

[The Great Nevareh]

It was all over the news.

Priest Shot Dead in Suburbia!
The Washington Post said it was a gangland shooting gone wrong, even though the gang activity in that area was nonexistent.
The Washington Times featured an editorial about it, berating the police force for letting such a thing happen, even though there was most likely nothing that the police could have done, even had they known about it in advance.
The Weekly World News featured it as part of their proof that Satan-Worshipers from Mars have come to Earth to kill off the world's religious figures, despite the fact that the priest in question, Father Simeon Fuse, was a relatively insignificant member of the diocese of Maryland, and that the Satan-Worshipers of Mars don't enjoy physical conflict and prefer theological discussion to disarm their foes (though other Martians find Catholicism offensive, the followers of Satan think that a non-violent approach is best).

All the articles written about it mentioned that there was a man who was driving through a small strip of suburbia in College Park, Maryland, when he somehow ended up outside of his car and filled with seven different kinds of ammunition. There were an additional thirty-three kinds of ammunition found in the surrounding area, but luckily no one (aside from the priest) was hurt. People disagree as to when it happened, how it happened, though they all are pretty sure of where it happened. The priest ended up about twenty feet from his car.

Father Simeon Fuse was a teacher at Catholic University, where he taught Mathematics and Engineering. He had been returning from a symposium at the University of Maryland's College Park campus and at somewhere around twelve at night he was slain.

Who did it, how they did it, and why they did it is a mystery to all of the world. Even if you knew about Father Fuse's secret life.

Some people knew him as "Burnt Fuse," a Knight Templar who had been serving the Celestial Chorus with his unique form of Technomancy since the mid-eighties, and later settled down for a more mundane life. As one of the few who worked with the second Doctor Quacer, he helped bridge the gap between the Technocracy and the Traditions, thus ending the centuries of quiet warfare between the Conventions and the Traditions. At that point, everyone thought it was over.

And, for the most part, it was. Mages no longer needed to worry all that much about being chased down by men in black suits with rocket launcher arms and laser eyes. They still had a lot to worry about, like the vampires and the apocalypse and demons coming around and stealing people's souls and the Avatar Storm and the Gauntlet and Marauders and Nephandi any number of other things, but they didn't need to worry about a highly organized, methodical group of what for all intents and purposes are highly powerful and highly accepted mages hunting them down and smearing them along the ground.

Simeon Fuse had retired from the hectic life of his younger days and became a teacher that furthered the beliefs of an institution that he once fought with all of his heart and all of his soul. He lived a good life.

And then this happened.

So fingers pointed, and names were named, and no one got anywhere. Old wounds might be dressed and might be treated, but they still leave nasty scars. And these scars can still open.

So the third Dr. Quacer has sent a few well-placed letters to a few young Tradition mages that are just far enough under the radar that they might find the truth...

One of these letters went out to Edward Somner, and sat waiting patiently in his inbox looking astoundingly suspicious with its official air and its waxen seal.

A second letter went out to Kira Breznev and sat in her mailbox, its pure anachronism and inefficiency spiting her, with its old-fashioned manner of sealing and its offensive use of tree corpse to effect the entire triviality of snail mail.

A final letter found itself lodged in Cristopher Carver's mailbox, a little mystery in of itself as to why it would be there in the first place.

All three of these said exactly the same thing, and all three bore a seal that they would have to be Orphans never to have seen- The Seal of Dr. Quacer and the Samaritans. The eye/caduceus/shield emblem was superimposed and impressed onto the ancient-seeming sheet of paper, locked there with a perfection that naturally implies authenticity.

All three asked their recipients to be at at a certain internet café in the middle of Washington D.C. (that is conveniently located a few blocks from a metro stop) at about 8:30 PM on a Tuesday night- with no further instructions.