MS's sleep was interrupted by the harsh blaring of an alarm clock. Monday. The start of another week. Another long and pointless week. This isn't exactly what she'd dreamed of when she joined the academy. She wanted to be a hero. You know. Arrest the bad guys. Help keep the city safe. Instead, she found herself at odds with people she shouldn't be; her fellow police officers, and city officials. A lot of these people were in the pockets of the gangs. Some cops even moonlighted as gang enforcers, making sure that deals go down smoothly, without interference from the few honest cops there were left.

She looked over to the buzzing alarm clock and reached over to shut it off. 6:30. After another minute or two, she brought herself to her feet and walked to the shower. Sleep didn't come too easily here for her now. The shower helped to wake her up. That and the coffee. Every morning was about the same. Wake up. Shower. Get dressed Breakfast Then coffee. Can't be a cop without coffee, right?

Today wasn't any different. She got into her car and headed to the precinct. The sounds of the city ruled the morning, as they did every morning. They usually weren't good. Gunshots, or police sirens. Not that it mattered much. She just had to go in and do her job and hope that it wouldn't run her afoul of somebody in the gangs' pockets. There was no reason for that hope, she knew. It was only a matter of time, and she had to keep herself alert at all times, even around fellow officers.

She pushed through the door of the precinct and made her way to her desk without a word. Even though she was early, she didn't talk to the ones that were already there. Most of the others didn't like her much, for obvious reason. Still, she had a job to do. All there was now was to wait for her partner and the captain.

His fingers shook around the cigarette in his hand, the smoke leaving his mouth in a nervous shudder. Ashes crumbled from the end and fell onto the carpet, a dark spot of grey on otherwise spotless beige. The senator's carpet had been a blank canvass of expensive Berber, but now it was flecked with ash from his cigarette and a slowly widening pool of blood. He'd thought it would get it easier, but so far it hadn't. Still, he told himself- he wasn’t doing this because it was easy. He was doing it because it was right.

The body of the senator was propped up in his expensive designer desk chair, ropes binding him tightly enough that he’d had no hope of getting away, but not tight enough that he gave up trying immediately. Cloe had left a little wiggle room. For posterity’s sake, he told himself, dragging in another long breath against the filter of his cigarette. Because when you’re being tortured, there needs to be that tiny bit of useless hope.

The senator was still recognizable, but he made a gruesome sight now that Leo was done. The last eighteen hours of his life had been terrible, but eighteen hours was nothing compared to what he had gone through. Eighteen hours, in the scheme of things, was but a single flickering moment.

Blood pooled beneath that expensive leather swivelling chair. Teeth littered the ground, root still sticking to reddened ivory. Leo felt sick, wracked with memories of not so long ago. Wracked with memories of his own torture. His fingers touched at the inside of his mouth where a set of permanent dentures had been surgically inserted. It still hurt, though he knew a lot of it was in his head. Even the sight of pliers brought him pain. It spoke of his devotion that he was willing to pick up a pair to do what was right.

Some would call him mad, he knew. Maybe they were right. Being tortured often had that effect on people, and what was it his file said? No longer mentally intact. Maybe that was the truth of it, but it didn’t mean he was wrong. Leo stifled his cigarette on the carpet and pulled himself to his feet, turning to face the dead senator who had signed the papers allowing the U.S. government to torture him- one of their own- for information. The senator was only the eleventh on a very, very long list. Leo Ipso had only just begun.

There was a sheet of paper on the desk, and a waiting hammer and nail. Leo put the paper against the dead man’s chest and hammered it in. His personal calling card, left on the first ten, and now the eleventh, too.

'Q. E. D.'

Another day,

Here we are to slave away.

Sky so grey,

One must pray,

But all the trouble is here to stay.'

The scene was painted just right. Cold, bleak light filtering through a shuttered window, hinting at mysteries unsolvable. Smoke twisted lazily into the air from an ashtray, cigar still lit within. An almost empty bottle of gin accompanied a dirty glass, lipstick stain still visible and probably permanently imprinted upon it. Now, cue lights! The flickering bulb hummed to life, exposing every shadowed nook and cranny of the dingy apartment. Cue sound! An anguished moan from the mattress on the floor. Shuffling. The cracking of abused bones.

"7 am already? Nights don't last long enough around here," grumbled the bed's occupant, although her voice remained emotionlessly sleepy. MS crawled out of her hovel unhurriedly. After all, her being late again wasn't big on the Captain's list of things to care about anymore. She dressed quickly, however, and jogged down the flight of stairs outside her flat. Maybe if she picked up coffee she could avoid the obligatory 'fire and brimstone' from the Captain this morning. Fortune smiled upon MS as she turned the ignition key; she sighed with relief, ready to take on the world once again.

In the parking lot of her station, MS hesitated a moment before killing the engine. After a moment's deliberation, however, she simply shrugged and exited her vehicle. Either she'd die today on the beat, or she wouldn't. Didn't make sense to dick around about it, though. MS grabbed the Coffee, locked her car, and carefully balanced it on her way into the office. She dropped one in Homicide, one in CSI, and left one on the Captain's secretary's desk. She must have been earlier than she thought if he wasn't in yet. Of course her peppy partner was already here, waiting for the boss. She punched him lightly on the shoulder with a smile.

"Mornin' sunshine! Early bird gets the worm, eh? Too bad all the worms get up late around here." MS joked.