Really more suspects? Everyone you questioned has been a dud.

Yes but that's because I've been narrowing it down! You have no idea how the process works.

Do you? Just pick a person out, c'mon I just want to fight something already!

You hear that? That was the sound of me sighing in my mind. This is why I can't handle the two of you, you always want to pick a fight with everything.

No, I want to fight. Ms. Psycho wants to eat them. Let's not talk about her cause it's killing my buzz.

Alright then let's get on with the questioning. Hold on I was wondering... am I talking to you in realtime? Like am I having a hyperfast chat in my mind or am I just awkwardly standing there as I focus all my attention to talk with you and time moves on normally?

"Silver, what are you thinking about? You've been standing there for a while, it's kinda freaking me out." Catherine unintentionally answered my question.

"I was just thinking about the next person I'm going to question."

"Well I got Annie to move Paul to the medbay in order to keep him safe." She explained. "So now's the time for you to get to work detective.

That's great, if Paul was still here everyone's attention would be on him because of the whole suicide cult thing that was revealed. But now all eyes will be on me as I continue my investigation and hopefully maybe someone will reveal something incriminating that will help with this case.

"Listen up!" I made sure everyone could hear me. "We still haven't found our killer yet but I can feel that we're close!"

"You got someone on your mind?" Miley asked.

"What? Oh yes, yes I do! Annnnd it just happens to be you!" I directed my gaze at Haven.

He looked behind him to see if I was calling someone else out. "Me?"

"Yes you. Everything was just fine until you returned from your little trip."

"I don't get what you're trying to say... we returned late in the afternoon and nothing happened until night."

"We were lost in that place for what seemed like a day so we were dazed and confused when we finally got out." Miley said.

"Yeah it took a little longer to get back to base cause we were stumbling around." Catherine laughed it off. "It was really surprising to find out that we were in there for only an hour or so."

"The point I'm making is that it's suspicious!" I raised my voice. "-"

The crowd interrupted me and started asking them about where they've been yesterday and what they were doing there but they just replied that they would tell them another time. So it would seem that he didn't talk about it, I'm already caught up to speed but it's a good thing to make everyone aware of their adventure in the facility.

"I'm not the killer." Haven got back to the matter at hand. "You already said my alibi was good and I just gave out my reasons for being here, I have no intentions of killing anyone."

His alibi is solid, he was hanging out with Bill around the gym and Bill did confirm that it's true...

"I will put my lot in with Haven's innocence." Sam raised her fist out.

"Please let me finish what I was going to say. Ahem! I'm not saying that you coming back makes you a suspect, what I'm saying is that you having information about that facility makes you suspicious." I tried to clear things up.

"What does that hafta do with Haven here being the killer?" Bill inquired.

"Just to clarify, none of you have heard anything about this facility before?" I looked around to see the crowd nodding. "That's good... but I have a feeling that one of you is lying. You could've discussed something important with someone about the facility and when you found out that Mary overheard you you took her out!"

"Are you suspecting that it was me and Bill? We were talking in the open, anyone could have heard Bill." Haven had furrowed his brow.

"Nope. I'm talking about you and Samantha."

"Didn't you say that she was with you?"

"Yes but she did go to the washroom around 9:00."

"I came back soon afterwards!" That's true, it wouldn't have been enough time to kill someone and then hide the body but Sam's act had dropped, I'm close to something.

"E-excuse me but I did see Haven leave around 9:00 as well..." A cultist gave me the evidence I needed.

"Yeah I also saw him leave." Savannah reinforced the statement.

You got lucky.

Yeah and I don't care.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

"You're alibi is starting to become shaky." I looked at Haven. "What we're you doing after you left the gym?"

This time Haven couldn't answer right away. It couldn't have been coincidence that Haven and Sam left at the same time, they must have met up with each other to do something. And if they were the killers Haven could've hidden the body by himself while Sam returned to my room.

"I... I did meet up with Samantha." Haven sounded flustered.

"I heard from Catherine that you were the computer guy during the exploration, maybe you found something that you didn't share with the others but you could with someone you trusted and I heard that you two are pretty close." It was speculation on my part but guessing has gotten me pretty far.

"N-no I told them everything I saw on the computers. I met up with Samantha to, uh, talk."

"Then why all the secrecy? Why'd you have to keep it hidden if you were just going to have a nice little chat?" I can feel that I'm on the verge of a confession.

"Well it's because, we... I was asking her out... she said yes." Haven's face was flushed red as his eyes broke contact from mine.

"Yes to what?"

Catherine tapped on my shoulder. "Uh I don't think you should continue."

"What? Why?"

Haven couldn't keep his eyes straight anymore, he's on the edge. Same with Sam, she was crouched down and hiding her face. These two obviously did something to Mary and couldn't hide it any longer. This was the turning point, it was now or never and I need to get a confession out of them. But how come I couldn't shake off this weird feeling? The atmosphere around me has gotten a lot more... heated? I looked around to see everyone moving around anxiously, some were even rubbing the back of their necks.

The hell is going on with everyone? Is... is this the part where they reveal that everyone was in on it?

Shut up. That's not it.

"I'm pretty sure that they aren't the killers." Catherine whispered. "Well at least you revealed something."

I'm confused. What's going on?

"Holy shit Silver, you can find anything out except who the killer is." Miley remarked.

"Sooooo I guess they're not the culprit?" I narrowed my eyes in confusion, I don't really get what's going on but if everyone else thinks it...

The crowd started to surround Haven and Sam, they started congratulating them on their relationshi- oh. OOOOOOOHH okay I understand now. Wow I'm bad at reading the room, I can't believe I didn't pick up on that. I guess they would try to hide it from everybody and meet up in secret. It was bad luck that they coincidentally met up at the same time the murder occurred.

"That's great and all but we still have no clue who the killer is!" Miley complained.

And I mean she has every right to complain. I went down my list going through all the suspects but all I managed to do was discover that their religion is a fraud and that two of them are dating. At least we got the time of death but once again I feel like I forgotten something important. What would Detective Kane do? Hold on he barely did any detective work he just punched everything, what would Detective Elsio do?

"Can we get back to the hostage negotiation?" Sweeper raised a finger. "I want to go back to my base..."

"The killer is still out there, you just have to wait a bit more." Engie reassures her.

"Have you tried finding the murder weapon? Or scanning for fingerprints?"

"... what do you mean?" I stared at the hostage.

"Scanning for fingerprints or doing anything that can help identify the suspect. Questioning is good and all but shouldn't you get more concrete evidence?" Sweeper explained as I finally remember what I should've done first. "The killer did touch the victim considering she was probably moved into that room."

Oh.

"Oh."

Yeah fingerprints are a big deal. I can't believe I forgot about the murder weapon as well, we talked about how she died due to stab wounds and I didn't even suggest looking for the knife! I'm actually so embarrassed right now. Looking at the others, they also look like they didn't think about it as well.

"Engie... go get the scanning tools." Miley ordered. "You and that other girl were the only ones that touched the body so the only other prints on it should be the killer."

"Everyone form a neat and orderly line so we can scan your prints too!" Catherine motioned for everyone to get into position.

The cultists didn't exactly follow the order correctly as they disorderly shuffled around. Despite her best attempts at trying to get them to line up Catherine struggled to get any kind of arrangement from them. It has been a rough day for them so I can get why they're so lost.

"You!" I picked out a cultist from the squirming group. "Come here for a sec."

The girl stepped out of the group and walked towards me. "Is there a problem?" She tilted her head.

"You helped with identifying the time of death and it's not like I suspect you or anything but can you remove your hood?"

She did as I asked and slowly pulled her hood down revealing her dark black hair that was tied into twintails. I saw a bit of her hair during our chat earlier and the colour of it reminded me of something but I can't quite put my finger on it... her hair was too dark to be natural, did she dye it?

Hey... she looks similar to that girl in the basketball game... the same bitch that shot our ear off during the first attack on our base! But her hair wasn't tied up.

You're better off at remembering it than me, I'm barely conscious when you take control remember?

There's a resemblance...

"Is there something wrong?" She asked me.

"Uh no it's fine. Everything's good. Ha ha. Just wanted a face to match the voice." I smiled.

Engie returned carrying a bag full of tools, she really didn't need to bring everything just one or two scanners was enough. She carried the bag over to me and dropped it. I opened it and reached in for one of the scanners. It was a hand held device that resembled a white hair dryer.

"Hey Miley! We should get Annie to come back up with Paul just to make su-"

Huh? I'm on the ground. What happened? There was a massive pain in my chest. I've been shot.

Arrugh goddamnit lower the pain receptors in that region this freakin' hurts!

I was too slow on lowering it so I took the brunt of the pain but once I did the stinging sensation that rattled my mind stopped. I looked up to see who did it. It was Bill.

"Let's get outta here!" He screamed into the crowd, Haven and Sam pushed their way through.

Bill then fired into the group hitting some of his own. Miley reached for her weapon but was shoved out of the way by Savannah who lowered her hood revealing her bright red hair.

"Get a move on Corporal Sweeper!" She grabbed onto the hostage.

"C-captain? You came for me!" Sweeper beamed with excitement even though chaos was surrounding her.

The US are here? What the hell are Haven and Sam doing? Do we need to use HER!

NO! NO WE DON'T! That shot from Bill was from an electric weapon, the bolt had burned through my skin layer and reached my inner plating but the good news is that it didn't pierce into anything important so we're still good to go. We don't have to use HER, I can still stand.

They're getting away! HURRY SWITCH ME IN!

The sounds of a window breaking was heard as the US soldiers proceed to jump down from the second story of the base.

"What the hell is going on!" A voice from down under screamed.

"Silver are you okay?" Catherine called out to me as she pushed against the wave of cultists running away from the gunfire.

Before I could say anything I heard the sound of something hitting the ground with a tink. It was a grenade.