1.11 - Perfection

Danisha had wanted to get home early for a change.  As dedicated as she was to her job, this was a rare occasion where she really needed to get home early.  But there's been a break-in in the North side of town that was proving to be quite difficult.  In fact, aside from the fact that there was no body it rather mirrored her own case with a bunch of furniture tossed about or damaged and only one particularly expensive item missing.

But as tantalizing as the case was, as soon as they finished taking photos and collecting what little evidence there was to be had, Danisha rushed home.  She hoped she'd made it in time and opened the door to the apartment only to find a lovely young lady standing in the hallway.

"Welcome home, Danisha," Erika greeted.  "Look!  I had my birthday," she announced.

"And it seems you found the clothes I bought you.  Along with... my makeup?" Danisha prompted, raising an eyebrow at her daughter's appearance.

"It's just a little.  To enhance my perfection," Erika explained.

"I'm not sure what 'enhancements' are needed, but it seems you grew up quite perfect in my eyes.  I'm sorry I missed your birthday," Danisha replied.

"It's okay, Danisha.  I know your work is important.  I forgive you," Erika assured.  Danisha had been worried that her daughter would throw a tantrum or something, but it was a relief that she was taking it so well.

"I'm grateful you understand, darling," Danisha replied, leaning down and hugging the little girl.

"Where's your brother?  Did he, at least, celebrate your birthday with you?" Danisha asked.  Erika made a disgusted expression and rolled her eyes.

"Like I wanted him to celebrate my birthday with me.  He's in his room, attached to that computer of his.  Like he ever does anything else," Erika replied.  She didn't understand how someone as perfect as her mother had resulted in someone so imperfect like Nielson.  It was a sheer mystery to her.

"Well, never mind him.  I'm sure he'll wish you happy birthday when it isn't so late.  Speaking of which, you should get off to bed," Danisha reminded her daughter.

"But it's Saturday tomorrow!  Besides, you haven't given me a birthday present yet," Erika demanded.  There was that fussy toddler poking out again.

"All right, all right.  Present, then bed," Danisha agreed, producing the package from her work bag.  It wasn't nearly as extravagant as a new apartment with a private bedroom, but it was nearly the same thing she'd given Nielson on his birthday when he became a child.  A book, although a different flavor of book than the one she'd gotten Nielson.

She tore open her present and while not as overjoyed as Nielson had been with her book, she still seemed pleased.  She even tried to stay up to read it but Danisha reminded her of her promise and sent her off to bed.

Since Danisha stayed up a while longer to have dinner and do some chores about the house, the kids were up before she was.

"Good morning," Erika greeted her brother as he walked past.  He mumbled a greeting in response, apparently still half asleep despite being dressed.  Erika just rolled her eyes and decided to ignore him.

When she entered the bathroom she wrinkled her nose in disgust.  The toilet was foul.  How could they live like this?  She could kind of understand where Danisha was coming from since she was constantly working, but what was Nielson's excuse.

"Is it too much to ask for the house to be perfect?" Erika grumbled as she set to work scrubbing the toilet until it sparkled.

Once she was finished she took a shower to make sure none of that nasty dirt had gotten on her and got dressed.  She then stepped up in front of the mirror to do her make-up.  "Perfect.  Well, almost," Erika mused as she regarded herself in the mirror.

She wasn't an overly huge fan of the clothes her mother had picked out for her.  It wasn't that she didn't like purple, it just wasn't a perfect shade.  Still, her mother had bought them for her so she wouldn't complain.  She would just need to make sure that she went shopping with her mother when it came time to buy teenage clothes.

Satisfied for the moment, Erika decided to go out and explore the town a bit.  It wasn't like she had anything better to do, and she certainly wasn't spending the day with her brother.

She made her way outside and considered the city around her, making note of different things.  The apartment complex they lived in was nearly perfect.  If only a little old.  Still, that was an easy fix.  All of the plants in the small garden were perfect as well, with a perfect black gate surrounding them.  She smiled as she walked along the sidewalk only to freeze.

There was something decidedly imperfect spoiling their beautiful apartment complex.

 There, on the sidewalk just outside the garden, was a rat sitting on the sidewalk.  Well, not a rat perhaps, a relative of the squirrel.  Which was close enough as far as she was concerned.  A dirty, filthy animal was blighting the otherwise perfection of the perfectly laid out sidewalk slabs she was walking across.

That simply would not do.

She reached down for it.  She hadn't entirely formed an idea of what to do with it once she caught it.  All she cared about was getting rid of it.  Unfortunately, it saw her shadow leaning over it and fled down the sidewalk and into a gutter.

Erika immediately frowned that it had gotten away.  It was still tainting her image of perfection by the fact that it was still there, even if it wasn't right in front of her anymore.  Next time she wouldn't let it get away.  In the meantime, she made a mental note to tell her mother that they needed to hire an exterminator.

The buildings that she walked past as she made her way through the city varied greatly.  Some were perfect pinnacles of human achievement, others were dilapidated and decidedly imperfect.  She also passed a large variety of people on the street.  Some were dressed exquisitely in perfection and others were decidedly not.  Now she understood why her mother worked so hard to 'clean up' this city.  There was so much wrong with it.  So much imperfection.  She wondered if something like the police really could clean up this mess.

Finally, her wandering brought her to the edge of the city and in front of the iron gates to the cemetery.  She paused, but the gates were open so she figured there was no reason she couldn't go inside.

She wandered amidst the tombstones for a bit, quite pleased at how well-cared for this place was.  There weren't even any pests marring the carefully manicured grass and flowers.  Finally, she stopped in front of the gravestone that she hadn't realized she'd been looking for.  It read 'Nielson Gaul'.  But she knew this wasn't her brother's grave.  It was his father's grave.  Her mother's husband.

"Hello," she commented, not sure what to call him since she knew he wasn't her father.  Oh, her mother had never outright told her that when she would tell her stories about him, but she knew enough about timing to know it didn't make any sense.

"You know, Danisha is trying to clean up this city.  It's the imperfections of this filthy city that resulted in you dying so soon," Erika explained.  "I'm not sure if she's going to be successful, though," she admitted.  From what little she'd seen just today, it seemed like a lot of work for just one person.

"But you don't have to worry.  Even if she doesn't succeed, I will.  I won't tolerate living in a city that isn't perfect.  I promise," Erika assured the tombstone.  Satisfied with her little speech she left the cemetery.  She could have gone straight home, but decided to stop at the park across the street from her apartment.  She hopped on the swing and gazed out around the city, deep in thought.  How was she supposed to make this city perfect, when with every swing all she could see was dirt and corruption on the horizon?

Meanwhile, Danisha had just been about to go out and see if she could find her wayward daughter when she was stopped by an unfamiliar face in the hallway.  "Excuse me, are you an officer?" the woman asked.

"Yes," Danisha agreed, wondering how this woman knew since she wasn't in uniform.

"Oh good, Emilio told me you were," the woman replied with a sigh.  A flash of irritation went through Danisha as she wondered how many others that guy had told after specifically requesting her to be silent on the matter.

"What seems to be the problem?" Danisha asked, not letting her annoyance show on her face.

"Well, you see, I've been seeing this suspicious behavior recently and just knew I had to tell someone," the woman replied, her voice filled with concern.  Danisha instantly became more focused.  Suspicious behavior?  And the fact that she was referred to her by Emilio meant that it could have something to do with the incident he saw at the river.

"Go on," Danisha urged, and the woman smiled when she realized Danisha would hear her out.

Unfortunately, this proved to be just a waste of Danisha's time as the woman, Peyton, proceeded to ramble on about how she was pretty sure that she saw celebrity Harry Marks slumming about and that the receptionist at the spa was pregnant without a baby daddy in sight and on and on with the casual gossip.

Danisha had already pulled out her notepad and was dutifully writing things down, although only things that  might be somewhat relevant to illegal activity.  The woman just seemed to be having way too much fun with this, though, that she wondered if she wasn't just making most or all of it up.

Finally, the woman was finished and Danisha forced herself to thank her for her time before heading inside to write up the report.  As long as she spent the time writing all of that down, she was certainly going to get credit for it.  Unfortunately, she found someone else occupying the computer at that moment.

Nielson was the one on the computer with his chat program open.  He was talking to someone named VampGirl66.  She was way nicer than the girls at school (if she was a girl) especially that Belisama.  He was still sore over her turning him down at the dance in front of everyone.  Even though it had been a couple of days ago, the other students were still talking about prom so he hadn't been able to forget about it yet.  But VampGirl66 was showing him that not all girls were like that.  Although he was pretty sure that was the type of girl his sister was going to turn out to be.

So, wanting to get this report over and done with as quickly as possible, Danisha headed out to the local library to write it up.  There wasn't anything serious in it so she was quite positive that it wouldn't matter if she typed it up on a public computer or not.

Although she did make a mental note that she should probably look into buying another computer for herself as well.  As soon as she got another promotion, that is.


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Hello everyone!  Hopefully this chapter didn't feel too much like a filler.  We got a chance to see some of Erika's personality, now that she's a child.  I have to say, she has a rather disturbing set of traits right now and I was trying to show that in her behavior with this chapter.  Spoiler, for those who want to know: Erika's current traits are genius, evil, and perfectionist.  So hopefully that explains some of her behavior this chapter.