NOTE: This story takes place in a reality several membranes down from the official Marvel universes. It’s something of a combination of the classic Excalibur comic series and the animated TV series X-Men Evolution. The official Marvel X-Men universe is Earth 616. Welcome to Earth 723.
![grin :D](./images/smilies/grin.gif)
NOTE II: I tried starting this murder mystery story a few months ago, but it wasn't going in the direction I wanted so I decided to delete the draft I had up and start again from a new angle. I hope you enjoy it!
SINISTER MOTIVES
By Rowena Zahnrei
Chapter One
Sally Sutherland stretched her arms out behind her and leaned back in her chair, listening to her stiff joints popple and crack. It was shaping up to be another long night, but Sally didn’t really mind. The dim light made the small security office seem warm and cozy, and the sound of moving water outside in the treatment tanks was sort of relaxing…as long as she didn’t let herself remember how much of it was pouring in from the sewers.
The Jardine Water Treatment and Purification Plant was the largest water treatment facility in the UK. It processed just over a billion gallons of water a day, serving more than seven million consumers in the London and Greater London area. Sally was one of only three guards who worked the night shift. Yet, although it could be lonely at times, and more than a little boring, it was reams better than her previous job sorting letters for the Royal Mail. That job had been an endless stream of machine noise and chatter in close quarters with at least a dozen co-workers. She’d come home at night so tired and frazzled she’d barely had the energy to crash on the couch, let alone to cook dinner or to play with her daughter, Janey.
Here, she had an entire office to herself and, as long as Janey’s father Jack was willing to take the night shift at home and drop Janey off at kindergarten in the morning, Sally could sleep all day, then spend the entire afternoon with her daughter. In fact, tomorrow, she was planning to take her to LEGOLAND to see the new Excalibur exhibit in the Hall of Fame. She was pretty curious to see how they'd managed to model Nightcrawler's tail out of LEGO bricks, and she knew Janey would be excited to see Shadowcat--
Sally’s thoughts of Janey and the fun day she had planned were interrupted by a flash of movement on one of the security monitors on the control panel before her. She leaned forward and used the control pad to swivel the camera, zooming out to give herself a wider view of the gate.
No one was there. The chain and lock on the gate seemed intact and untouched and, when she switched views, she could see no sign of any unauthorized vehicle in the car park beyond.
“Probably an owl,â€