The Chicken Or The Egg
Prologue
by Carolina

Over the years, being a CSI had taught Eric Delko a great deal about life.

How to lose it, how to get it back, how it give it away, how to take it – everything he did, every menial task he performed, whether it was taking a fingerprint or getting coffee for Alexx, it all came down to life. Every day was a new opportunity to figure out to protect it, his own as well as his peers', his family's, complete strangers. Without qualms. Without hesitation. It's noble, he'd heard, to put yourself at risk for others and expect nothing in return. And yet he easily recoiled when he was called a nobleman, after all, he thought of nobleness as greatness, and there was nothing particularly magnanimous about his life. At the end of the day he was just a guy willing to take a bullet for a complete stranger. Some called it nobility.

He liked to call it stupidity. Noble stupidity, perhaps, but stupidity all the same.

Yet there were moments when he wondered if it was all worth it, all the trouble they, as the law enforcement, went through to keep people safe, only to watch them turn around and destroy each other so easily. Some days he wondered if he could retire a little too early, find another line of work and distance himself from all the poison the city spewed onto itself. Wash his hands off it all. His mother had been begging him to do it for years – stop chasing after bullets and fingerprints, get a meaningless job, maybe real estate, find a nice girl and settle down. Most days that he walked out of the lab to deal with idiots and troglodytes killing each other over for whatever trite reason he thought maybe his mother had a point.

But the work was an addiction. At the same time that a life ended, his would take meaning. He'd grown obsessed with putting the puzzle together, finding pieces that fit and discarding those that didn't, and finally being able to see the big picture. Bringing justice to those who couldn't speak anymore. Bringing peace of mind to their families. Risking his life so that others wouldn't have to worry about their safety.

He knew he'd probably be able to extend his life expectancy infinitely if he quit the job, got a real estate license, and gave complimentary cookies away as he tried to sell homes, but somehow life without the prospect of the puzzle had become a meaningless estimation. And so he got out of bed every morning and slowly got through the tough days (because every life is important), talked himself through the negative thoughts (because every life is worth saving), and tried to see the big picture (you help life continue, new life begin and grow, and that's all that matters), all the while walking on landmines to keep millions of strangers safe.

How ever stupid it made him.