JULY 25th, 2014.
Knock, knock.
Knock, knock, knock.
Seth’s knuckles tapped against the wooden door in successive order, asking for entry into Liam’s office.
“Ah, come in, come in,” Liam responds from behind it, welcoming him.
As he began to turn the doorknobs and open both doors, his eyes caught a glimpse of a new figure, glaring at him. A woman he’d never seen before this point, but something seemed off…
Well, this isn’t great.
The woman in question, who stood in front of Liam’s desk with her left hand pressed against the top and being leaned into slightly, was Miyuki.
The signer that Kat warned him not to go near.
She looked to be in her mid-20s, with long, whitish blonde waist-length hair that swept over her left eye, a thick patch of black covering it with a shorter string tying off near the back. Her arms were covered in tight white bandages, though more uniform than Keith’s and missing any runes. The most striking part of her was the Lichtenberg scars spread like a web of branded lightning throughout her left shoulder, up her neck, and finally ending underneath and slightly past her eyepatch. She wore a formal undershirt cut off at the sleeves, styled like a tank top, with short black cargo shorts, black leather stockings, and… unraised heels, of all things, to end off her brawler-esque look.
Before Seth could make out all of that, however, he realized something far more relevant:
She seemed incredibly annoyed at his presence.
Seth threw around the idea of acting as if he didn’t know who she was or why she looked at him like that, but he figured it’d only make the situation worse. Without uttering a word, only a harsh glare at best, Miyuki turned back toward Liam and spoke with a soft but slightly fried voice.
“...Later.”
She turned once more and walked to the doorway Seth was just standing behind and to the side of as she gave him a side-eye throughout.
“...Hmph,” she grunts at him, clearly sizing him up and feeling disappointed with his value before walking off into the hallway and not looking back.
“I extend my apologies regarding… Miyuki. You see, she’s still upset that Kat was injured in your fight,” Liam explains, trying to ease the somewhat heavy atmosphere the room had taken on.
Seth turns his head back toward Liam, who had been tracking Miyuki with a very uncomfortable, forced, and anxiety-ridden grin on his face.
“She’s… she’s the one who chopped me up into little meat cubes, right…?”
Liam returns his awkward, uncomfortable grin with one of his own, closing his eyes and leaning into it as he does so.
“Yes… indeed.”
Ah, she’s scary.
“Outside of that… I’m happy to know you’ve made a full recovery. Kat came by a while ago and offered an update on your situation. Seraphim is getting ancy, it seems.”
Liam leans back in his black office chair, sighing slightly as he does.
“They’ve never been this aggressive before…”
And that’s…
Walking over to the midway point between Liam’s desk and the door, Seth bows his head to express a sincere apology.
“...That’s my fault.”
Chuckling, Liam waves his hand in front of him to the side, as if to dismiss Seth’s worries.
“No, no. There’s the matter of you being a ‘progenitor’, yes, but I was certain that this would’ve happened sooner or later regardless. That isn’t why I wanted to talk with you.”
Liam reaches under his desk, unlocking some sort of hidden compartment with a key Seth assumes was hidden under his sleeve.
Click.
As he pulls a small stack of manila folders out of the aforementioned drawer and sets them on the desk in front of him, Seth realizes that all of them pertain to the recent string of murders plaguing the Outer Layer, the same that took his former friend’s life. On the top folder, clearly written in black marker, was:
ARCHANGEL INVESTIGATION 3
THE POLICE TAPE MURDERS
No name, huh…
Placing a USB stick with the connector hidden inside the plastic casing on top of the folders, Liam taps it with his index finger while looking over toward Seth.
“These are copies of the information we’ve collected relating to the murders and the victims. Activity logs, security footage, network histories, autopsy reports… all of it is housed within these folders and…”
He picks up the USB stick and holds it in front of him between his index finger and thumb, intently glaring at it.
“...Most importantly, this.”
Setting it back down on top of the folders, he glances in Seth’s direction with a serious expression, foregoing all of his usual approachable merits. He’s holding his shoulders back, staring forward with a straight-on chin and piercing eyes.
“Seeing as we can’t tell when they’ll kill again, this is currently our highest priority case. I need you to take these and find what you can. Anything at all will help.”
Seth glances down at the folders and the USB stick, and then back at him, responding with a short but firm nod. Liam’s intimidating, demanding gaze made it hard to say anything at all. But that gaze softened as he finished nodding, with Liam taking on a soft, satisfied smile.
“Good,” he says, leaning back into his chair again, “And one more thing. From now on, the 14th Company will be required to operate in groups of at least three members. Whether you’re answering a report, on a patrol, or inquiring for an investigation… this must be upheld.”
Liam tilts his head downward, flashing an interrogative stare toward Seth.
“Is that understood?”
Seth firmly nods his head again.
“Yeah… no problems here.”
“That being said…” Liam trails off, tilting his head slightly and chuckling sarcastically to himself. “...What a poor job you did as her mentor!”
Mockingly stifling a laugh, he points his free index finger toward Seth, who is furrowing his brow and shifting his lips upward in annoyance. Well, he knew Liam wasn’t wrong about failing to be a proper mentor, but even so, the way he brought it up irked the hell out of him. Before he could say anything, though, he realized he remained silent for a little too long as Liam parted his lips to speak again.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
“I’m only joking. You’re a soon-to-be busy man, so let’s cut this off here. Report back if you come across any leads!”
Liam slides over the folders and USB stick with both of his hands, expressing a reassuring smile. Reaching forward and picking up the stack, Seth stands up, gives a slight bow forward, and then turns to walk out of the room. Right before he can exit the doorway, Liam speaks up again with a curious tone.
“Oh, and one more thing…” he trails off, momentarily thinking about how to phrase the question, “If you’re the one the killer was targeting… then what makes you a ‘bug’?”
Seth abruptly stops in the middle of reaching for the right door’s knob, frozen. He knew the answer to that question immediately, of course, but it was out of the imagination that he’d ever be able to tell Liam or anyone else about it. Without looking back, he grasps his hand around the doorknob and slowly pushes it shut behind him, but not before he responds.
“I… don’t know. And I’m pretty sure I’ll be better off that way.”
The doors slowly close shut behind him as he exits into the hallway, heading toward his room.
. . . . .
Klk-clk-clk-clk-clk…
Nope.
Klk-clk-clk-clk…
Nothing here, either.
Vrrr-vrrr… Vrr…
And no, again…
“Aghhh…!”
Seth exclaims while looking up at his room’s ceiling, pressing the back of his head against the top of the back of his chair.
“This is difficult, man…”
He continues to tap his fingers against the keyboard, using shortcuts to browse through files to increase his efficiency and decrease the time spent going through all of them.
Here?
Klk-clk-clk.
No. Dammit.
On his dull silver laptop, now with a medium-sized USB sticking out of one of the ports, lies a collection of sub-folders belonging to each aspect of the case. His first course of action, as he was mentored to do long ago, was to go through each folder and cross-reference them with the physical files he’d been handed.
That was a long, arduous process, quickly chipping away at his patience.
His desk is a complete mess of open folders and spread-out files, as well. He had grabbed two bottles of Dr. BGold in preparation, but, well…
…One of them was already gone.
Ah, this sucks. This sucks! It sucks! I’ll die!
Would you stop your incessant complaining? I am trying to rest.
Oh, really? Well, I’m working my ass off!
Yggdrasil yawns over the top of ‘off’, dismissing Seth’s retort. Seth ignores him, as he’s learned that is usually the best option at times like this. He continued to cross-reference each and every single piece of information until an hour had passed, causing him to hurriedly raise his fist into the air as a sign of victory.
“I’m finally finished…!”
Correct me if I am wrong, however… were you not just checking the integrity and availability of the information?
Yeah, so?
As such… you have not done anything worth reporting back.
Sure, but I…
Ah.
Instantaneously, Seth realizes that he has a very, very long night ahead of him. For the next few hours, he combed over— for the second time— a vast collection of information. Emails, text and call logs, security footage, network traffic history… even various surgery records, and, finally, the crime scene reports as well as the autopsy files.
What’s this…?
His eyes searched over the first of the autopsy reports, detailing an estimated time of death, the multiple lacerations, and detailed breakdowns of the victim’s mutilation. However, what caught his eye the quickest was a box of text detailing certain marks that had been discovered all over her body.
“The victim was found to have heavy amounts of symmetrical deep bruising which, according to…” he trails off, reading the segments of the text, “...Was found to have been caused by what we can only assume to be human-shaped…”
He trails off again, confused by the information that follows.
“...Hands. Specifically, the bruises imply that at least twenty-eight to... thirty... hands had held down this woman as she was torn from…”
He stops reading, not wanting to dive into the details of the mutilation itself. As far as he was concerned, that’s a last-resort option.
‘Twenty-eight to thirty hands’…? That has to be a signer. Gripping against someone’s limbs and leaving identical, deep bruising… not even a mafia would go that far. And there's too many bruises for a whole gang to be standing over this woman at once.
As his mind drifts from the victim’s autopsy to the collection of murders as a whole, he recalls an important detail.
It being the work of a spirit makes sense… those bits of muscle tied up like string, that’s way too precise for a group of deranged sickos to pull off.
And…
He feels a twinge of despair in his stomach for a moment as he recalls Feno’s fate.
…To tie police tape up that high… no average ladder could’ve reached that.
Opening up a sticky note tab, he types the possibility into it, referencing the documents and evidence he has to support the claim.
Now… the security footage.
He clicks on the file, opening it as it pulls itself up on the built-in video player application.
Ugh… I don’t like this already.
The view is from a high-rise camera, attached under what Seth assumes to be the lip of a commercial roof’s under-hang. It neighbors a two-story apartment complex, the focal subject of the video, highlighted with a sharp diagonal angle as passersby can be seen to and from the complex, as well as walking within its open floors. It’s a rainy night, and there’s a lime green filter over the footage, but he can more or less make out the details of the video clearly.
Seth places his finger on the right arrow key, fast-forwarding through the footage and scanning it for anything out of place, or the sighting of a victim. A few seconds later, one of the first three victims, a young, brown-haired male in his 20s wearing a grey jacket with the hood up and black sweatpants, is seen walking into the camera’s view from the bottom right. They seem frightened and anxious, rapidly and repetitively looking over their shoulder.
There you are… now, what were you running from?
Seth watches the video play in real-time as the soon-to-be victim walks past the streetside and into the complex’s area, approaching the back left corner, where a tall lamppost stands and illuminates the surrounding radius in a sharp white.
Trying to reach the light, huh…? But why…?
The victim crouches underneath the middle area of light cast by the lamppost, crouching down while trying to bury his head against the front of his legs, covering his head with both hands in total fear.
What could make you react like—
Without warning, Seth’s eyes widen in shock as the light from the lamppost that illuminated the scene disappears, and the area is drenched in total darkness. The camera continues to roll, filming the empty scene as a sense of dread washes over him.
…Wait, but… there was no one else around…?
With his fingers immediately hitting the left arrow key, he reverses and forwards it until the point where the light was shattered shows. Holding the sequence of another shortcut, he scrolls his mouse wheel forward as the video is zoomed in to, and he hits the right arrow key to move the playback forward in a fraction of the time.
It doesn’t take long before his serious, searching expression fades to one of horror, not being able to say with certainty that he knows what he’s looking at.
What… is that...?
Next to the top edge of the lamppost, and just barely visible due to the poor resolution of the footage, is a hand. A pale hand, that looks similar to a human’s…
…But that was missing an arm to belong to. It crawled against the light, using its fingers to grip onto it. Seth slowly moves the video forward and notices that there’s a large motion blur in the less-than-a-second moment right after the light shatters.
There was more than just one hand.
There were many, and the footage seemed to imply…
…That they all rushed the victim at the same time after the light had gone off.
But why turn off the light? Did the killer know there was a camera nearby, or…?
Seth shakes his head, throwing himself back into his concentration.
No, that doesn’t matter right now. I need to tell Liam about this as soon as I—
Seth’s eyes glance back to the video as he forgot to pause it after that revelation, and his eyes catch something new.
Wait, that’s a…
In the midst of the darkness that had been left by the absence of the lamppost’s light…
…Was a small, barely moving rectangular light.
A phone had been turned on, exactly overhead where the victim had last been seen.