Senseless

The evidence glowed in high definition on the screen as Ren's chest felt the sinking pressure of sorrow. While his team were questioning other potential perpetrators, in the back of his mind he had a feeling his mother was the murderer. With the rose gold locket in his hand he tried to feel it's smoothness despite the wasted effort. The locket found at the scene didn't belong to a poor young woman of common birth, but to someone of high society willing to pay a fortune for 20th century craftsmanship.

What would a 300 year old locket be laying in a haphazard pile of clothes on the floor? Ren poked at his screen until images of various spots in the victim's room became three dimensional and surrounded him. Maybe there was something that could prove his mother's innocence, but as he toyed with the heart shaped locket in his fingers and added all the data, he concluded she had none.

"Dr.Ray is going to kill you for messing with evidence," Jett said after the laboratory door opened to his touch.

"It's not like it has prints anyways," Ren said before tapping the computer screen. The images returned to the screen as the droid's voice suggested its zooming features.

"Henry said the glaze she smelled was from this century at least but-"

"They couldn't figure out what it is," Ren moaned, frustrated, "Guess we're going with plan C." He placed the locket on one of the lit lab tables. Typing on the table's keypad, the table illuminated allowing both of them to see the locket's faded sheen.

"What's plan C?" Jett asked.

Ren rolled up his sleeves to his elbow while holding a stare with Jett.

"You're bleeding again. You hurt yourself daily, " Jett said as he went to the nearby desk and took the med kit, "man that sucks you can only feel pressure and not when you're in pain. No wonder Dr. Grieggs doesn't allow you out on the field."

"But at least I can smell," Ren cracked his first grin in days, "but that's why there's plan C."

"Which is...?" Jett asked as he bandaged Ren's arm. Ren only bled a prick's worth of blood, but if left untreated Ren could easily catch an infection.

Ren took the locket once more and held up to Jett's full lips, "I bet you could figure it out."

"Ah no," Jett shook his head, "Dr. Ray was right it could be poisoned."

"You're in the best anti-crime force in Seowa and near the best medical facility in Region 5. I wouldn't ask you to do this if it wasn't important."

"Every case we have is important."

"Please?" Ren begged.

"Why is this case so dire for you? I've never seen you work this hard. You haven't left this room since we got this case. Everyone is concerned. What about this case makes you so obsessed? And if I'm going to risk being poisoned I better have a damn good reason. "

Ren paused before he could explain, "This is from the 20th century," he said as he typed, "This one was rather popular in 1993," he said as the image of its double shone before them.

"So? What does this have to do with you?"

"Only the rich can own such an antique. How many things do we have of the old world? Half the world's continents are under the ocean and yet this little trinket survived? I often thought about that as this hung around my sister's neck."

"Wait," Jett tensed his mouth, "forgive my insensitivity but why would your dead sister's locket be at the victim's house...?" Jett paused as the eureka hit, "you think your mother is involved? Why? And how?"

"Why is easy. My mother is a politician and the victim was a journalist."

As they talked the rest of the team joined them with Tearysa handing Jett a touchpad. Her blindfold hid her wearied expression.

"Looks like it was a male who murdered her," she said, showing both Jett and Ren the new evidence of the partial DNA samples found around the victim.

"My mother," Ren said, "would hire someone."

"You're mother?" Henry asked as she signed their conversation for Bradley.

Ren just shook his head after he explained to the others his suspicions, "no way more than one of these survived. Jett," Ren took the pad and placed it on the table, "please. I have to know what it's coated with. The victim wasn't poisoned as far as we know. We can trace the chemical and find out why we can't open it."

"Fine," Jett grabbed the locket and sat at the table while the others gathered around him. He had the touchpad ready to type the chemical components he tasted.

The tip of his tongue gingerly licked the back of the locket.

"That can't taste good," Bradley signed with a wince.

"It's kinda sweet actually...but metalic and..." Jett signed back but took another lick when he couldn't fully ascertain the exact elemental compounds.

After several more licks, Jett had written down a long list of chemical compositions. Henry reviewed it as she took it down the hall to Sasha and Nina. It only took a few minutes for Sasha to find the glaze's source.

"It's antique sealant which is pretty obvious," Henry said as she rejoined them, "but it's not a popular brand," she showed Sasha's findings, "look this brand is only used by top tier historians. Expensive too."

"Ok," Ren said, "Henry and I will search antiquities historians to see if we can't come up with a place of origin. Jett, Tea, and Brad..." Ren sighed, "bring my mother in for questioning."

Her piercing glare stung worse than the back slap that caused Ren to bite his tongue. He could taste the iron in his blood, but feared the darkening iron-rusted eyes scorning him. The memories of bruises and cuts so deep scars ridged his body anchored him to the reality of her version of motherly love. He wished she admitted her disgust for him. At least then he could properly differentiate love and hatred.

"There's no proof that's her locket," she snarled as her anger grew into rage, "why it was there I don't know! How dare you accuse me of having to do with any of this! Your father is beyond furious! I can't even begin to-"

"Then let me help you," Ren offered, "the historian we found definitely said this was Tellia's. He said you bought it from him weeks before she was born. My only guess is that you had that journalist killed for your own political gain..." Ren paused to read her body language. She stood poised and graceful yet her marbled expression gave hope to her innocence, "or someone killed her in order to save you."

With one cocked brow his mother released him from her intense stare. She stood and paced around the dark and bare interrogation room. Her pacing came to halt as she stared into the black mirror knowing full well her every move came with their analysis of her behavior. She whipped around to meet her son's gaze again.

"I noticed it missing from her room months ago," she admitted, "but," she looked down at her cuticles as she picked at her skin, "I thought you or your father took it. Years ago I had it sealed. Tellia didn't want anyone to know what was inside it. Only I knew. I figured one of you took it to find out," for the first time in years she allowed a moment of vulnerability, "I have no idea how it came to be next to a dead woman. Another dead woman that is."

"Someone could have stolen it," Ren said.

His mother went quiet and though her skin couldn't have turned a paler color than white, her face seemed void of blood flow.

"I have to go," she said while she headed toward the door, "no more questions. I hope you find that poor woman's killer, but it wasn't me." She pounded on the steel door until Nina opened it.

Ren's mother nearly flew out of the room leaving behind a gust for Nina's bleached hair to catch along with the stench of her spicey-sweet perfume. Ren waited until he couldn't hear his mother's silver tipped heels denting the stone floors to say anything.

"You have her tracked?" Ren asked.

"Of course," Nina said, "we'll be able to hear and see everything. Good thing she believed we manually search suspects."

The team, save for Jett and Tearysa, gathered around the headquarters main station as they watched Ren's mother enter into one of her villas just outside the city. Private enough for herself but not so much so as not to raise suspicion. Moments after she whistled the lights on, a younger man came up behind her and embraced her. She kissed him back but with less vigor.

Ren knew his father had affairs, but wasn't privy of his mother's.

Their conversation was lite until she mentioned to her lover where she had been and why. He took her hands as they sat on her sofa. He seemed concerned and uneasy as she told him of the locket and how it went missing.

After a long moment of silence the man stood from the couch, "Promise me you won't tell your son this."

Ren's mother let out a curt gasp, "ok."

"That journalist knew about our relationship. I didn't mean to kill her, she just-just was in the way and we fought and the locket was in my pocket because I was going to have it framed, but she found it in my bag at a cafe, stole it, and was going to use it to expose us!"

They argued and as the argument grew it became more violent than Ren cared to see. Tearysa and Jett, who had followed Ren's mother, hacked her home's security and had their weapons ready. Tearysa's katana grew in length until its blade stroked the man's neck.

"Don't bother denying it," Jett said, "we have your confession," he nodded towards Ren's mother's blazer. He cuffed the suspect and nearly hurled the man into his hover car.

Tearysa stayed behind with Ren's mother until Ren joined them. However, his mother went to her room and didn't speak a word to her son or to anyone for almost a week.

She never came to claim the locket. Ren expected to see her ferocious nature hurl through the halls to regain it back, but the only thing she said to Ren before traveling to Region 3 for the summer was simply, "good work."

Alone in his room with his sister's locket in hand, Ren had bought a tiny laser to open the locket. It took longer than he had anticipated but he managed to open it. If he knew what physical pain felt like he imagined it similar to the regret he felt once he saw the locket's secret.

A rice paper picture of both of them as kids hugging each other. A single drop of her blood watermarked her face while his face was clear of stains. Visible to the front, on the back behind their faces were two ancient Chinese characters. On his was the character 生 (life) and on hers was the character 死 (death). Though he still didn't know how or why she died, the locket gave a clue.

Moments later he found himself weeping for her more so than he did at her funeral. But at least this time he was surrounded by people who actually loved him. In their embrace he felt their compassion and empathy. If there was one thing that tied them together more so than anything it was their hatred for senseless death. They had seen too much of it and as they readied themselves for the next case, their determination to make sense of needless death fueled their focus.