It was a cold, wet, grey day in Vancouver. There was a board in the West End - Coal Harbour Community Policing Centre squad room that read: "DAYS WITHOUT SUN." Somebody had chalked in "17." Most of the cops who worked there had forgotten the circumstances under which the sign had been erected (Joe [LAST NAME TO BE DETERMINED] and Bill [GIMME A MINUTE AND I'LL LOOK THAT UP] knew, but nobody thought to ask them); somebody must have been enthusiastic to keep track at some point, but nobody who had worked in the precinct for more than a month shared that enthusiasm. Nobody knew who kept the daily tally up (except for Joe and Bill, but they slipped out of your consciousness before your conversation with them was over). Years ago, somebody had chalked out the final "U" and replaced it with an "I." The Pizzicotti triple homicide put an end to that frivolity.
The weather didn't bother Joe or Bill. It wasn't that they were immune to the wind and the rain; it was that weather had enough respect for them to give them a wide berth. In return, Joe and Bill wore wide brimmed fedoras and trenchcoats in acknowledgement that weather could affect them if it chose to, and thanks that it chose not to.
Joe and Bill, the Eternal Detectives, went where they were needed. While they were there, it was like they had always been there; when they were gone, their triumphs were quickly forgotten. Everybody at the West End - Coal Harbour Community Policing Centre, where they worked the case in Vancouver, knew they had always been there on the edge of retirement, staying on for just one more case. One more case. One. More. Case. Nobody was willing to begrudge Joe and Bill staying on since they had a perfect clearance rate: they solved every case they investigated. Some of the less charitable detectives in the Coal Harbour precinct hoped that the one more case would be the one that they couldn't solve; some of that some thought that the defeat would cause them to disappear in a puff of smoke. Most of the men and women in the Policing Centre, though, were grateful for the Eternal Detectives, because their perfect record made the whole squad look good.
There was no colour to Joe and Bill, who appeared in shades of grey, as if they had watched too much television in the 1950s and it bled into the their appeance. They wore standard issue Eternal Detective black pants, white shirt and rumpled jackets.
Bill drove their black and white beater (it wasn't, like them, drained of colour; that was just the pattern in the long ago days when the vehicle had been assigned to them) up to a large container on a dock in Vancouver. Vancouver is Canada's largest and most diversified Port, and the largest export port in North America. The Port of Vancouver includes more than 16,000 hectares of water, more than 1,500 hectares of land and hundreds of kilometres of shoreline, bordering 16 municipalities and intersecting the traditional territories and treaty lands of several Coast Salish First Nations. I'm not saying this because I Googled it - it's common knowledge throughout Canada.
The manifest said the container was transporting Canadian flags, Canadian flag lapel pins, Canadian flag t-shirts in red, Canadian flag fridge magnets, Canadian flag flying over Vancouver fridge magnets, Canadian flag t-shirts in white and a baby's arm with a tattoo of a Canadian flag holding an apple. The manifest lied. What the container actually transported was horror.
"This crime was obviously perpetrated by patriots, Joe."
"How do you figure, Bill?"
"The manifest could have said this was a shipment of American flags. Or China from France. Or French fries from China. Anything, really. Whoever forged the manifest made it very Canadian - the only thing missing was fridge magnets of beavers and maple syrup."
"Not necessarily. The perps could have figured that nobody in Vancouver would inspect a cargo container that claimed to hold so much Canadiana. To even think of doing so would be unpatriotic."
"If they didn't want the container to be inspected, they shouldn't have left it on the dock for three weeks. A little thing like that attracts attention."
"Patriotism has its limits, Bill. It has its limits."
Bill cut the engine and the car hiccoughed to a halt; he had long ago accepted that there were no medications for what ailed this vehicle and chalked it up to "character." He and Joe got out and walked up to the container.
Next to it stood a tall man with a face so hangdog you could be forgiven for thinking that he stretched it on a gallows every morning before breakfast. He was the Vancouver coroner. His name was Sanzio or Buonarroti or Betto Bardi or...or...or something classical like that. A plume of smoke followed the man around like a puppy; he appeared to be smoking three cigarettes at once, none of which were inconvenienced in the slightest by the rain. There was no mistaking the gratitude on his face when he saw the two detectives walk up to him.
"Evening Joe," he greeted them. "Evening Bill."
"Evening, Dominic," Joe returned the greeting. "What have we got?"
"You're gonna wanna see it for yourselves," the coroner told them, lighting a fourth cigarette as two of the original three burned down to stubs (without in any way affecting his lips - how did he do that?). "I've been at this job for seven seasons, and I've never seen anything like it."
Bill and Joe shared a look. "Do we wanna ask, Joe?" "Let the man have his angst in peace, Bill." "He does look like he has earned it." "You see a lot of the worst of human nature in seven seasons as a coroner." "If his face was any more hangdog, it would be the pet version of a word guessing game."
When you've been partners as long as these two had, your looks speak volumes.
"Yeah, I appreciate an expressive look between long-time partners as much as the next guy," the coroner cut in, "but it's two in the morning and there are a lot of bodies to process. The sooner I can do that, the sooner I can get home and perfect my hangdog look in the mirror while I'm sleeping."
With a nod of acknowledgement, Joe led Bill into the cargo container.
"Well, if that don't beat all."
"All, Joe?"
"All, Bill."
"A pair of deuces, Joe?"
"My grandmother could beat a pair of deuces, Bill, and she's been dead for almost thirty years!"
"I take your point."
"It was a good one."
"A full house, tens over sevens?"
"It could beat a full house, aces over kings."
"A straight flush?"
"It could beat a straight flush."
"A royal flush?"
"It could beat a royal flush."
"What could beat a royal flush Joe?"
"Grace, Bill. Grace."
Bill frowned, as if Grace was a new concept to him. It didn't figure into the Friday night poker games he would have played if he wasn't wedded to the job. It hadn't figured into his marriage (which had, despite the empty hole where Grace should have been, managed to survive 33 years). It didn't figure into the pulp western novels that he enjoyed reading, except on those rare occasions when the school marm's name was Grace. Still, he was the junior detective here, and had a lot to learn about detecting.
The cargo container held bodies. Dozens of four foot tall bodies with no hair and balloonish heads and limbs. Even in death, their three piece suits were exquisite.
"Where's the blood?"
"Blood, Bill?"
"This much death, you expect to see a lot of blood, Joe. If nothing else, it adds a little colour to a crime scene."
"If I didn't know you better, I'd worry about you, partner."
"'Preciate it."
Moving around the container, Joe and Bill couldn't help but notice that there were no signs of violence. This left only one conclusion as to the cause of death, which the detectives came upon at the same time: asphyxiation.
"Isn't it ironic, Joe? Don't you think?"
"What's that, Bill?"
"They came from a universe where they didn't have to breath, only to die in an alien universe because they couldn't breath."
"You have the soul of a poet, Bill."
"The soul of a poet is necessary to be a good detective, Joe. You have to have it issued with your kevlar vest and pepper spray."
"I don't remember filling out the requisition form for the soul of a poet, Bill."
"It was right under 'snub-nosed revolver,' Joe. Easy to check off without even realizing you were doing it."
"Mmm..." Joe looked around the container hungrily, like clues were his sustenance and the restaurant was out of just about everything. After a while, his hum changed from absent thoughtfulness to thoughtful thoughtfulness. "Say, Bill, do you notice anything about the bodies?"
"Other than being dead, you mean, Joe?"
"Something unusual."
"I wouldn't think that being dead was usual for them."
"Something about the positioning of the bodies."
Bill peered at the bodies in front of him. Although the moon was obscured by rainclouds, the dock was lit better than a football field, so the peering was mostly for effect. One of the bodies was sitting on its ass, its arms and legs curved upwards. "Now that you mention it, there is something...different about - is that corpse making a letter?"
"I'll take observation skills over poetry any day. Yes. I think that's a letter."
"U?"
"I could ask, 'Me what?' But that would just be silly. Yes. The letter u."
The next body sat with its legs out to the side and its arms held straight up over its head. "L..." The body next to that stood, its elbows behind it and its arms straight ahead. "T..." The body next to that stood at attention, holding a bowler hat high above its head. "I..." The next body was on its ass again, its arms and legs straight out at a ninety degree angle. "Another u?"
"I think you'll find that's a v."
"Ultiv...erse. What's an ultiverse?"
"I think you may find that you started in the middle of the word."
Bill and Joe walked around the cargo container, tracing the letters the bodies made back to the beginning of the message. There were forty-one corpses in total, spelling out: "W-e-l-c-o-m-e T-o T-h-e M-u-l-t-i-v-e-r-s-e S-o-r-e-y F-o-r T-h-e I..."
Bill shook his head. "What does it mean, Joe?"
"It means that the aliens were true to themselves to the very end, Bill."
"What does being true to yourself mean if you're an alien?"
"Goofy."