Sherlock & Poirot, Crime Analysts

Located in Downtown Twilight.

You swing by the Crimebusters storefront to see what's new. To your amusement, there's a piece of paper slapped over the Crimebusters logo on the glass, with a hand-written^[sic] phrase "CSI: Criminal Science Investigations" handwritten on it.

You step inside. There's no sign of Stephan, but another disheveled young man is sitting at his desk. Shaggy, touseled^[sic] hair and threadbare clothes give him a less than professional look. He laughs disdainfully when you ask about the sign out front.

"Crimebusters? That's the day staff's name for this place. I'm part of the night staff. Same office, but officially a different business. We've got to come up with our own name. Howd'ya like CSI: Twilight? Got a nice ring, don't it? Not sure about the copyright, though. Got Gwen looking into that one. The other blokes'll be starting sometime soon. Bill and Leon or somesuch. Dunno really, haven't met them yet.

Anyway, I'm Dirk. I'm sort of a big-picture guy. Gestalt, if you will. The whole is greater than the sum of the parts, so look at the big picture. Holistic, like. I need a little more time to set up shop, but then we'll be in business. I'm into solving crimes, but I'm even more into studying crime, to solve it better, later. I know you see a lot of crime in your nightly work. We're trying to recruit a lot of the Twilight heroes like you to help us understand the city's crime, and better fight it. As poor college students we can't offer much, but we'll try to put together a commission scale for those who help us out."

You leave, metaphorically scratching your head. You're not quite sure what to make of Dirk.

History

• From at least September 6th 2009 To sometime before September 11th:

There are plenty of storefronts all over downtown Twilight, but this one catches your attention. You peer in the window, and from the dim streetlight you can get a sense of construction going on inside. Looks like they're finishing drywall on one side, and they're starting to put up some cubicles on the other side.

A sheet of printed paper on the door reads: "Future home of Crimebusters, Inc. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you. By which we mean this one. Since you're reading this, you're obviously near it." There's a large gap of white space, and then a teensy footnote at the bottom, saying, "* Unless you're reading this at the printer's, in which case you're a couple of blocks away." Weird.

• From sometime before September 11th to sometime on September 11th:

There are plenty of storefronts all over downtown Twilight, but this one catches your attention. You peer in the window, and from the dim streetlight you can get a sense of construction going on inside. The drywall is finished and they've moved on to painting. The desks set up on one side of the room are covered in cloth tarps.

A sheet of printed paper on the door reads: "Future home of Crimebusters, Inc. Coming soon to a neighborhood near you. By which we mean this one. Since you're reading this, you're obviously near it." There's a large gap of white space, and then a teensy footnote at the bottom, saying, "* Unless you're reading this at the printer's, in which case you're a couple of blocks away." Weird.

• From sometime on September 11th to sometime before September 21st:

There are plenty of storefronts all over downtown Twilight, but this one catches your attention. When you approach the plate-glass window to peek in and check on progress, you're surprised to see that the lights are on and somebody's home. And by "home" of course I mean "at work."

The man inside looks up from shuffling his papers, catches your silhouette, and waves you in with a friendly gesture. Figuring you've got nothing to lose, you open the door and walk in. The man's eyes widen briefly when he catches sight of your costume, but his smile only increases. "You're <name>, aren't you? Never thought I'd see you in here. Got a crime to report?"

You say that you'd just noticed the sign and the business name, and were curious about the place. The man nods. "Crimebusters? Yeah, we hoped it would be catchy. It was that or 'Drunken Moody Ace Detectives' and we figured drunken and moody went out with the noir films. Anyway, I'm Stephan Mainwaring, one of the investigators. We're a collection of forensics graduate students and ex-cops, mostly, putting our resources together to do some freelance investigation. Don't worry, we'lll^[sic] be sticking to mundane problems, like tracking down drug labs or missing persons. We'll leave the high-profile kidnappings and 'city hall held for one trillion dollars ransom by insane villain' stuff to you. God knows there's enough crime to go around."

You can't but agree to that. Stephan extends an invitation to stop in any time, and says it may be worth you trading off assignments now and then, if you get anything too mundane, or they find themselves facing anything too difficult. You're mostly noncommittal, but make a mental note to keep an eye on these guys.

References

• The text refers to the CSI media franchise, and specifically to "CSI: City" spin-offs.