The body looked like something Colton had seen when hed caught a glimpse of the Blue Ribbon's kitchen, a mess of shredded flesh, exposed bone, and crimson blood.

"It's not the first time one of our workers has been caught in the machinery," John Downpike, the floor foreman, said. "But due to the nature of this particular casualty, Mr. Fink thought we'd better get the bulls involved."

"I can see why," Sgt. Wilkins said, eying the cords of rope around the late Roy Blake's wrists and ankles. "Unless you can think of a good reason this poor sod tied himself up before going to work, it looks to me like someone tied him to the belt and flipped the switch."

Lt. Colton chewed his lower lip thoughtfully, then tried to hold his breath so he didn't choke in too much of the dead man's smell. He carefully brushed aside some hair on the back of Blake's broken skull and studied a bruise there.

"Doesn't look like this was caused by the same mechanism as the rest of his injuries," Colton said. "If I had to guess, I'd say a wrench. Easy to find on a factory floor, and makes a pretty handy weapon when you can't get your hands on anything else. Make him easier to tie to the belt if he was knocked unconscious first."

"When did you find him?" Sgt. Wilkins asked.

"Not long after we started the line this morning," Downpike said. "Next man on the line raised bloody murder when he saw the body coming down the conveyor belt."

"And when was the last time anyone saw him alive?"

"I can only speak for myself, but I'd asked him to stay after we closed to have a little chat about his work ethic. He'd been getting sloppy lately and it was costing us time and money. We parted ways at about quarter past eleven. From there, he went home, I'd imagine, and I headed straight to the Good Time Club for a few drinks. I was there until they closed, at which time I headed home to catch a small amount of sleep myself before starting the line again about three hours later."

Colton went back to chewing on his lower lip.

"Mr. Fink will see you now," Flambeau, Fink's assistant, said. He led the lieutenant and the sergeant to the elevator and then hit the button. Colton watched floor after floor of factory lines, creating Columbia's latest technologies, disappear from sight.

"Try to be as brief as possible, gentleman," Flambeau said. "Mr. Fink is very busy, and he hates to see people when he's working."

"We'd hate to burden Mr. Fink with something as trivial as the security of all of Columbia," Colton said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm.

Flambeau raised an eyebrow and then opened the gate separating the elevator from Fink's office.

"Fink by name, fink by reputation," Colton thought, though he tried to push it from his mind. Daring to think anything disparaging about Columbia's most praised head of industry was almost enough to see him branded a Vox Populi sympathizer and charged with sedition. Colton had heard talk of a secret prison beneath Downpike's precious Good Time Club, a place where traitors to the Columbia Police Department were said to wind up. Jeremiah Fink didn't seem overly preoccupied with his work. His eyes had a glazed look to them as one hand swept an ink quill over a stack of papers and the other twisted a curl of his handlebar mustache. He pushed aside the tall stovepipe hat on his desk to get a better look at the policemen.

"Lt. Colton and Sgt. Wilkins," Flambeau said.

"Thank you," Jeremiah Fink responded, waving his assistant away. "You gentlemen are here about the unfortunate incident of Downpike's floor?"

"If by unfortunate incident you mean the tragic death of one of your men, then yes."

For someone who'd wanted to see the "bulls" brought it, Fink didn't seem very enthusiastic about the show of police force. Perhaps he'd expected middle-management to deal with the law in his place.

"We try to keep our factory relatively safe," Fink said. "But accidents do happen. Unfortunately often in this industry. The man's name was Blake, yes? I never had the pleasure of meeting him personally."

"And now you never will."

"Take that tone of voice all you want, Lieutenant . . . do you have a first name?"

"No, sir."

"Lieutenant Colton, your days on the force are numbered."

Fink's eyes lit up and he smiled from one curl of his mustache to the other.

"Would you like to meet your replacement?"

Fink walked back into the elevator with Colton and Watkins and pressed the button. When the ride came to an end, he led them across the factory floor, past Roy Blake's corpse, and into a large dark room. A jolt of Shock Jock from Finks fingers lit the lamps around the room, and Colton found himself staring at a grotesque display of gears and porcelain modeling.

"Meet the Motorized Patriot," Fink said. "Soon to be the sole protector of Columbia, once we've manufactured a large enough batch. This is, unfortunately, just the failed prototype."

Colton tried to recognize the long, narrow face and beak-like nose on the automaton.

"It's William Henry Harrison," Fink said. "Our ninth president. Father Comstock wants the final product to look like Father Washington, but since this is just the experimental phase . . ."

Downpike burst into the room, gasping for breath.

"Sorry to interrupt, sir, but I think we've found something the constables should see."

Colton looked from the foreman to the factory owner.

"That's all I need from you right now, Mr. Fink."

"Thank our Lord for that. I'll be back in my office if you need me for anything else."

Downpike led Colton and Wilkins briskly down the line, and he was turning a corner when Wilkins almost lost his balance.

"Are you okay, sergeant?" the lieutenant asked.

"I'm fine. Just seem to have found a slippery patch."

Colton knelt down to study the spot of floor next to Wilkin's foot, about a yard from the end of the nearest conveyor belt.

"Melted wax. Interesting."

"I have something far more interesting to show you, if you allow me," Downpike said.

Colton nodded and Downpike led him to a row of lockers. He pointed at the grate, where Colton could see a shock of blood-red.

"The man with the next locker spotted this grabbing a sandwich from his own locker," Downpike explained, searching for a key on a large ring as he spoke. "We've had some trouble on the line. Sabotage. Missing blueprints. Everyone's been told to keep an eye out for Vox involvement."

Downpike finally found the key and opened the locker, and the blood-red papers cascaded to the floor, each of them baring the image of the Vox leader, Daisy Fitzroy.

"Whose locker is this?" Wilkins demanded.

"Ralph O'Reilly," Downpike said.

"Of course," Wilkins said, shaking his head. "One of 'them'."

He blew a whistle and uniformed constables rushed in. In a matter of minutes, OReilly was being dragged from the floor, shouting, "I'm no Vox, I swear! I love our Prophet!"

Taking the elevator back to the wharf, Wilkin's clapped his hands as if to shake off dust.

"All's well that end's well."

"Is it?"

"Of course it is. This man O'Reilly is obviously a member of the Vox, or at least a Vox sympathizer. He's a threat to our fair city either way. I'm sure we'll have a confession out of him soon enough. Why? Don't you like him for Blake's murder?"

"No," Colton admitted. "I like John Downpike."

"The foreman?" Wilkins laughed. "But he has an airtight alibi."

"We'll see about that," Colton said.

He and the sergeant shook hands at the wharf, and then Colton made straight for the Good Time Club. He hated the place. He hated the gaudy red velvet carpeting and the expensive drinks and the smell of the patrons cheap cigars. But he took the time to ask several of the members if they remembered seeing John Downpike the previous night. Almost everyone did. It seemed Downpike had been especially generous, buying round after round for the entire club, from at least midnight until last call. Off duty, Colton headed to the housing district, and the Graveyard Shift, a bar that was much more his own pace. He kept replaying every detail of his visit to Fink Industries as he nursed a strong beer while, on the phonograph in the corner, a singer whaled about how it was another day in paradise. The phone rang, and after a quick answer, the bartender handed it to Colton.

"You always know where to find me, don't you?" Colton said before the other man could speak.

"I dont judge you for it, sir," Wilkins said. "Just thought you'd like to know. Doc says Blake went to be with our Lord between half-past-one and half-past-two this morning. Does Downpike's alibi check out?"

"It does," Colton begrudgingly admitted.

"Case closed, then."

"I suppose so. Good night, Sergeant."

As he handed the phone back to the bartender, another patron caught his eyes. It was a man with flames jutting from his fingers, showing off the Devils Kiss he had no doubt just consumed. He seemed to be lighting napkins on fire and timing how long they took to burn. Colton immediately swallowed the rest of his beer, paid his tab, and headed home. The next morning, he was waiting outside the factory early enough to catch Downpike coming in.

"Something I can do for you, constable?"

"Yes. You can tell me how much earlier than usual you had to come in to plant those flyers in O'Reilly's locker and clean up the ashes burnt rope left on the factory floor."

"What?" Downpike asked, cocking his head as if he hadn't heard.

"I performed an experiment last night. I found out it takes half-an-hour to burn a six-inch length of rope like the kind used at the factory here from end to end. So, by my math, it would take three hours to burn three feet of the stuff. So you could knock Blake on the back of the head with a wrench as he's leaving, tie his hands to the belt, and tie his ankles together, then tie another rope to his ankles, tie one knot to the rail at the end of the belt and another to an anchor about three feet away, and light a candle under it. That gives you plenty of time to show some largesse at the club, make sure everyone sees you, as the rope burns away, releasing Blake about three hours later, feeding him by the belt you'd turned back on into the machine. Poor fool was probably even awake again by the time he was crushed."

Something changed in Downpike's face. He looked almost feral.

"Then," Colton continued, "you'd have the keys to come in early, sweep away whats left of the burnt rope, and plant Vox propaganda in your scapegoat's locker. But not enough time, it would seem, to clean up the melted wax."

"Do you want to know why I did it?" Downpike asked.

Colton just nodded.

"Blake was blackmailing me. Asking me to leave nine-hundred Silver Eagles in a box under his favorite stool at the Graveyard Shift. I spent less than that buying drinks for everyone at the club that night."

"And what was Blake blackmailing you with?"

"He found out . . ."

Suddenly, Downpike charged towards Colton, the Sky-Hook on his wrist spinning. Colton desperately countered the blow with his own Sky-Hook.

". . . that I was Daisy Fitzroy's agent inside the factory."

Colton forced back Downpike's hand, and the cheap Sky-Hook slid from the foreman's wrist. Colton barely had time to notice the flash of red and black on Downpike's hand and the sudden growth and recline of the length of the foreman's fingernails before the Murder of Crows launched from Downpike's fingertips into the constable's face. By the time Lt. Colton managed to wave the crows away, Downpike had vanished. Colton ran forward, only for Downpike to reappear from around the corner, firing a China Broom. Colton grasped his bleeding stomach and collapsed. Downpike pointed the shotgun at his head.

"I hated to make O'Reilly the sacrificial lamb," he said, "but I was doing it for men like him. You see, those Motorized Patriots are exactly what the Vox Populi need to turn the tide of our struggle. Forget George Washington. Daisy Fitzroy has plans to build them all in the image of Abraham Lincoln. She sees a revolution coming. A revolution even your precious prophet Comstock can't foresee, let alone your blue-clad friends and your fool Chief Thug Thatcher."

He was so captivated by his own speech, he failed to notice Colton drawing his sidearm and aiming it at his chest. The pistol barked and, while the bullets missed the heart, they were enough to send Downpike staggering back, off the end of the dock. He frantically reached for the Sky-Line above him, but without his Sky-Hook, it was a losing proposition. The last sound Colton heard was Downpike's scream as he plunged towards the city miles below.

*This is for the BioShock Infinite writing contest.