SET: Pre- "Love Among Runes"

Logan double checked the crime reports and made sure he read the cause of death especially carefully. Impossible. The very idea was ridiculous, people do not just die from a thing like this. He winced when he thought about it. It was a pretty painful way to die and definitely a weird one too.

And if it was weird, with their current luck, there was a 95% chance a transgenic was involved. Almost 100% considering it was a police officer and the Manticore escapees had a thing for hating authority.

That thought made his mind jump to Alec and he smirked. It was probably a miracle that Max had met him first because if Alec had simply been let loose on the world… yikes.

That's not entirely true and you know it...Logan reminded himself. Maybe at first he could see it but now, Alec had proven he was on their side and fairly trustworthy.

Logan picked up the phone to call Max. Regardless of whatever was going on, if a transgenic was behind this, or even if it wasn't one, someone needed to look into this and it probably shouldn't be the police.

Max frowned as she listened to the voice on the other end of the line.

"Are you sure? Like, absolutely sure?" she asked again.

Alec closed his locker at Jam Pony and walked over to her. He was a bit bored and bugging Max was usually a good way to keep himself entertained. Then he saw her expression and became a little concerned.

"Hey, everything alright, Maxie?" he asked.

Max just held up a finger for him to wait and his concern shifted to annoyance. He didn't have to try to help. Often, he didn't even want to and this; the whole getting shut up for asking what's wrong, is exactly the reason why he didn't try to make a habit of it.

"Alright...Yeah, got the address. Alec and I will check it out tonight." she answered.

Alec's eyebrows shot up. "I'm doing what now?" he asked.

"Shh." Max replied. Alec's shoulders slumped and he rolled his eyes.

"Can't believe you pulled me into this…" he muttered. "And I don't even know what it is."

"Yes, I've got it… Okay...bye, Logan."

"Oh, Logan. That explains it." Alec snarled. Not that he hadn't already guessed who had a hand in forcing Alec into a job on ridiculously short notice.

"Weird death near Sector 5. We're going to look into it. Meet up at Josh's house at 8." Max ordered and started walking away.

Alec darted forward and grabbed her arm to stop her, maybe a little faster than the Ordinaries around him would've been able to but he didn't particularly care about them just now. "Hold up. Mysterious death? What, Logan's having you join to police force or something now? Sorry, us? I remind you I didn't agree to this. I could very easily have plans tonight."

"You can miss out on being a bar-fly for one night. There's a good chance it's a transgenic and you owe me."

Alec sighed and wondered why the universe hated him so much to put him in the debt of the one person in the world who would never let him forget it. "Fine, but what kind of death? How did they die? I wanna know what I'm up against here."

Max turned to look at him and with a completely serious expression said: "Death by a million paper cuts." and walked away.

"And here I was with plans to clean up at the Crash tonight." Alec mumbled.

Another night ruined. Great.