Jacque had a look of fear that was presenting itself as unbridled rage. He was pacing next to Chris, who was futilely trying to console him. As soon as Jacque saw Theo step onto the floor, he made a beeline to the detective, pulling himself out of his husband’s grasp.
“Have you found out anything about Amelie yet?” Jacque’s question was pointed. There was no delicate way to handle the situation that Theo could think of.
“Jacque, we’ve already had this discussion. If I’m investigating your daughter, it means that she’s already dead.”
“Yeah, Theo, I know it’s not your department. I don’t give a shit about your goddamn job! I want my fucking daughter back, and you have the resources that can make that happen!” Jacque was so angry as to be visibly shaking. “You’d think a longtime friend might do a little more to help, even if it meant doing it off-duty.” Jacque waited for a response but didn’t get one. Theo wanted him to let it all out. “What is it, hmm? Maybe you’d be more interested if I wasn’t black? Well, Amelie’s white, so there shouldn’t be a problem there, right? Maybe if I wasn’t gay? Or maybe it’s because I’m not a cop? Special treatment if you’re in the club?”
Jacque knew that none of this was true of Theo, but it was cathartic to be able to get his distrust of the institution out into the open air. Still, he wanted to poke Theo a little more, he wanted some kind of reaction.
“Maybe if it was your own daughter...” Jacque said. This caught Theo’s attention. His face curled but he didn’t say anything, inviting Jacque to continue as long as he considered his words very carefully. Jacque continued, “we’d probably have some dumb black kid already in custody. The charges might not fit the crime, but at least you’d have done something.”
Theo lunged at Jacque, grabbing him by his shirt collar and pulling him close. Theo’s fist clenched as hard as his teeth, but he didn’t throw any punches.
“You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about, Jacque!” Theo shouted. He growled at Jacque, who wasn’t flinching, only looking back at Theo with a similarly hostile expression. Theo looked around to see all the other detectives and officers on the floor looking at them, and a few of the closest had their hands hovering around their weapons. Even Chris had stepped forward and was holding Theo’s wrist. Theo let go of Jacque’s collar with a light shove and shook Chris’s hand off him, then he continued talking. “Did you just imply that if someone hurt your daughter, you wouldn’t want them to be punished to the full extent of the law?”
“...N-no...” Jacque said, now gently shying away. “It’s just that-”
“Just what, Jacque?” Theo’s cold stare made Jacque start backing down.
“Just... just, nothing... Sorry Theo.” Jacque said. Chris put his arm around him and started rubbing his back. “I didn’t mean any of that.”
“It’s fine, man. I won’t patronize you by saying that I understand what you’re feeling, but putting myself in other’s shoes is a big part of the job, so, well, there it is. I guess I did say it.” Theo said. Jacque rolled his eyes with a chortle. “Do you have any more information that you can give us?”
“Yeah, a few of her friends reached out to me. I got an account name I didn’t know previously. I... uh... we haven’t done any searching on it ourselves yet. We’re still trying to respect her privacy, and I’m kind of afraid it’s like a weird sex thing or something so... you know.”
“Okay, what is it?”
“It’s, uh... DufferCuffer.” Jacque said. Theo raised an eyebrow. It sounded familiar. “They said she probably has a few variations on that... I dunno if that helps.”
“Anything helps, thank you. I’ll take a look, and I’ll also relay it to Schanze and Holland. You should too if you haven’t already.”
“Yeah, we sent it to them as soon as we found it, but that was late last night so...”
“Alright.” Theo said. He put a hand on both Jacque and Chris’s shoulders and pulled them in for a hug. After pulling away, he turned to Chris. “Make sure he remains as calm and collected as possible. And that goes for yourself as well.” Theo smiled and Chris nodded. “Let me know if you get anything else, okay?”
The trio hugged again before Theo walked them the short distance to the elevator. Before the doors were even closed, Theo had pulled up his Forums police access account and did a search for DufferCuffer. Not only did it come back with the account name DufferCuffer857, but it revealed that Theo had discussions with her in the Boston Area Tech Philosophy forum not even a week prior. As soon as he knew this, he turned on his heel and went directly to the captain’s office.
Captain Richardson was sitting at his desk, motionless except for the flickering light in his eyes. He looked at Theo as he entered, but returned back to his interface without a word. When Theo closed the door behind him, the captain knew it was something important. He gave Theo his attention, but not all of it.
“What is it, detective?” The captain asked.
“I’m taking up Amelie Dumont’s missing persons case and investigating it as part of the suicides.”
“The hell you are!” The flicker in the captain’s eyes went away completely. He was now focused entirely on Theo, in disbelief. “We’ve already had this discussion.”
“But she’s directly related to the case, and if I’m correct, she could be under the direct influence of the prime suspect as we speak.”
“Direct influence? Like Stockholm syndrome or what?”
“I think he’s a hacker, who’s been forcing people into an AI generated virtual environment, a nightmare that they can’t escape on their own.”
“Okay, then let missing persons know to look out for someone freaking out. Shouldn’t be too hard to spot.”
“No, I think his control is more direct than that. While the victim’s brain is trapped in the digital environment, I believe the suspect has been using their BSI to directly control their bodies.”
“Controlling their bodies?” Richardson asked with a raised eyebrow. “Where did you hear that, a tween creepypasta forum?” The captain chuckled, but Theo didn’t. The captain continued, “are you fucking kidding me?”
“No, Hugh, I’m not kidding. And he’s been targeting people in a Boston area forum. The very same forum that Amelie had been frequenting before she was reported missing.”
“If controlling another person’s body with a BSI is possible, wouldn’t Bell-Westbrook know about it?”
“Really? Is this your first time learning about a monolithic, multi-national, trillion-dollar corporation? They aren’t exactly known for being ethical and transparent in their research or business dealings.”
“Alright detective! All I’m saying is that if something like that is possible, I think we would have learned about it by now.” Captain Richardson shrugged and leaned back in his chair.
“But we ARE learned about it, right now!” Theo said, leaning forward and knocking a pointed finger against the captain’s desk. “The whole reason this case is happening is because you thought there might be a connection between these suicides. I have found that there are, in fact, suspicious circumstances, that this is the work of a killer, and I think he's about to do it again!”
“We can’t have you investigating your own Goddaughter, detective!”
“Ah who gives a shit about that fucking rule!” Theo shouted. “Just let me do a CCTV scan for her, and maybe a cop can do something respectable, like save a girl’s life, or catch a serial killer.”
“No, detective! Hand it off to missing persons, that is an order, and I will hear nothing more about it. Here’s your next suicide in Dorchester.” The captain waived his fingers, and his BSI sent the files over to Theo. As soon as he received the message, Theo fiddled with his stylus to look at the case. It took less than a second for Theo to see that the young man had no cybernetics.
“This is unrelated bullshit. The kid doesn’t even have a BSI. Are you even reading my reports?”
“You’re over the line, Theo!” The captain shouted, slamming his hands on the desk as he stood up to meet Theo’s eyes. “Keep pushing and you’re going to find yourself suspended. Trust in the system, hand your information off to Schanze and Holland and get down to Dorchester.” Captain Richardson stared Theo down. Theo stepped back, crossed his arms, and gritted his teeth. “Now, detective!”
Theo stormed out of the office, trying to slam the heavy glass door, but the hydraulics caught it, bringing it to a slow and gentle close. As soon as he was out the door, Theo started working towards finding Amelie. The first thing he did was send a warrant for access to her personal data. It was granted within seconds, and Theo began scraping Amelie’s images, mirroring them, and running them through the BPD’s facial recognition software.
He stepped into his vehicle and ordered it into a holding pattern around the city while he started looking through Amelie’s Forum’s history. The very last message she received immediately caught his attention.
Synapse: You wanna see something really scary?
Chills went down Theo’s spine. Sure enough, Amelie was another one of the users that was very vocal in her disdain for Synapse, and had tried to get him banned on a few occasions. Of course, it never happened. She had only put a target on her own back. He skimmed through Amelie’s chat history with Synapse in the hopes that something might reveal his location or any actionable information that would help Theo to find him. He came up with nothing. Theo couldn’t even be sure that Synapse was in Boston at all, the only indication being his presence on a few Boston area forums. Again, Theo tried to access Synapses account directly using his police credentials, but instead of crashing just the forums app, Theo’s entire interface crashed, causing his interface to freeze, and because his eyes were prosthetic, it left him completely blind for several seconds.
Nothing like this had ever happened to him, and as soon as it did, Theo felt panic quickly starting to rise within him, but when he saw the Bell-Westbrook logo and initialization, he breathed a sigh of relief. The scare hadn’t deterred him. Theo went right back into forums and to Synapse’s account, where his interface crashed again. He had to reboot four more times before he threw up his hands and switched back to finding Amelie.
The system came back with several hits at different parts of the city since Amelie had been missing. By themselves, there were too few data points to discern any sort of pattern, but when Theo compared the locations with those that he had gathered from Christina and Jackson, he found a few locations that had been visited by two of the three, one in the waterfront where Shadow Recording was located, another was at a fast-food restaurant, but one location in particular had been visited by all three on multiple occasions.
It was in a derelict neighborhood in Mattapan, the same camera that caught a glimpse of Christina. He had already checked out the fast-food restaurant and didn’t expect he would get any better results if he returned, so he ordered his car to the location in Mattapan. The vehicle came to a rest underneath the mobile surveillance unit that had caught the images of Christina and Amelie.
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Theo was surprised to see that the unit was still in operation with the state it was in. The chassis was almost completely covered in graffiti that honestly brought some much needed color and style to the area. Some of the panels had been broken into and there were wires sticking out in some places. Theo stepped out of his vehicle and ordered it into a holding pattern outside the neighborhood. He thought it might be a bit more conspicuous, such a shiny car hovering around such a shady neighborhood. Theo thought he would fit in more with his general attire, which was nothing to write home about.
Watching the footage back provided little help. The pings all came from a small pane of broken glass in a window across the street from the camera. The captures were only a frame long, but Theo was at least able to make out their walking directions.
The time stamps were a little erratic, making it hard for Theo to consider how long they were in this area, or allow him to calculate a range of how far he should explore. He wasn’t even sure what he was looking for, but at least it was a good excuse for a walk.
Theo watched as his digital companion cat, Chess, begin darting around, leaping into bushes, and seeking out insects to play with. Theo also produced a Phantom cigarette and smoked as he walked. Without an exact purpose of direction, Theo really just ended up following the cat around.
There were a few other people around the area, though nobody was interested in getting very close to Theo or one another. They could probably see the cop on him from a mile away, which was fine, as Theo didn’t expect they would give him any good information anyway. He just wandered around the neighborhood in an expanding spiral pattern. As he surveyed the neighborhood, he considered what exactly he was looking for.
The most obvious thing, he thought, would be finding Synapse himself walking around, but Theo also considered what Synapse would have been there for in the first place. There wasn’t much to do in this neighborhood, with the main exception being purchasing drugs, though Theo didn’t expect that’s why Synapse was here. With a BSI, simulation of the effects of drugs was quite effective and potent, if imperfect as of yet. Instead, Theo wondered if he may have been meeting someone here for another purpose, perhaps to buy weapons.
For a moment, Theo considered whether he was here to exchange hacks, but he had to remind himself that exchanging data through physical media was something that hadn’t been done in decades, and really only ever showed up in film and television. In reality, the internet was the perfect data transference system for hackers. Anyone who was worth their salt knew how to keep their data encrypted. Theo didn’t completely write-off the idea, however. Synapse may have been onto something new in the ability to hack BSI’s, but that didn’t necessarily mean that he was universally competent.
It had been a while since Theo took a leisurely outdoor stroll. The setting wasn’t particularly beautiful, considering the overcast sky and the ruinous venue, but Theo felt a sense of calm nonetheless. As he watched his digital cat playing with the dandelions growing through the sidewalk, Theo opened his messages and sent a quick one to Kara.
TM: Hey, beautiful! 🥰 Just thinking about you, wondered if you wanted to go on a date tonight? IRL or not, I want to be with you! LMK 😘
Just as Theo sent off the text, he turned onto a street, where he saw somebody stumble around the bend a distance away from him and out of view. They appeared to be destitute with worn clothes and dirty, unkept hair. The way the person was walking caught his attention, and before continuing forward, Theo quickly browsed to his firewall settings and made sure they were up to date, then disabled his wireless firmware and set his eyes to passthrough[i] only. He picked up his pace to reacquire visual, and when he did, he noticed that they were suddenly different.
Their form was now that of a younger, slender person wearing dark clothing, with long dark hair. Theo was too far away to make out the person’s face, but every indication so far told him that he was looking at Amelie. Theo reacted with reflexive memory, trying to send an urgent request for badges to come assist him in grabbing her, but his overlay was still disabled, as was his wireless network connection. This gave him a moment to reconsider his plan.
He wasn’t sure how Synapse would react. The worst-case scenario would result in Amelie’s death, and Synapse would leave her body as quickly as her soul. Theo also considered that the longer he waited, the greater likelihood that Synapse was going to do that anyway. A dilemma gripped his mind, whether he should try to get his Goddaughter out of harm’s way as soon as possible or try to get more information about Synapse to try and prevent him from hurting more people. His indecisiveness made the decision for him as Theo began to follow the girl from an inconspicuous distance.
Theo’s stomach churned with the weight of his circumstance. He wondered whether he would get any information at all, or if with every passing second, he was missing an opportunity to save the girl’s life. He also considered the consequences if he did call it in. He was in for a lot of trouble having completely disregarded his captain’s direct orders, but the potential to save a person’s life was a reward that far outweighed the punishment he would receive.
He studied her body language as he followed her. Beyond looking like a 100lb girl who had downed a fifth of vodka, Theo could see that she was stowing something small and heavy in her hoodie’s front pocket. Theo was starting to get an idea of what was happening. Synapse was currently using Amelie’s body to help transport something. A weapon, drugs, tech, Theo wasn’t sure what, but the way Amelie was guarding her front pocket was a dead giveaway. Now he just needed to see what Amelie was doing with it.
As Amelie passed a dark alleyway next to an old brick building, she stopped and looked around her immediate area. Theo was finally able to make visual confirmation on her identity, confirming that it was who he expected. He ducked behind a vehicle as Amelie looked in his direction, and when he peeked back out, Amelie was gone, into the alleyway he assumed. From the layout of the buildings around it, Theo expected that the alley was a dead end, with only one point of ingress, so he stood on his spot and waited for her to come back out.
After a couple of minutes, Theo was getting concerned that maybe there was a tunnel, or some other exit that he didn’t expect. He began moving toward the alley just as Amelie stumbled back out. She seemed to look at Theo, but they were still hundreds of feet apart. Theo expertly altered his heading, hoping to appear as another random person on the street. Amelie didn’t seem to respond to him and continued on down the street in the same direction she was already heading. Theo breathed a sigh of relief, but now that she had seen him, he knew he had to be even more cautious as he continued to follow her.
She was no longer carrying the object. Theo made sure to memorize a few details about the location to come back and check later. He followed Synapse at a reasonable distance for hours as he stumbled out of the decrepit suburban neighborhood and around the city. Theo had lost sight of him a few times but was able to quickly re-acquire him. It usually wasn’t very hard considering his unique gait, but as it started to get darker, the task became more difficult, especially without the lowlight filters that his eyes could provide. As Synapse wandered into a block of apartment buildings, Theo lost him again.
After several minutes without eyes on Synapse, Theo picked up his pace, worried that he might have lost him for good. He ordered his car back to him and hopped in, then began driving around the block and down the alleyways. As the vehicle pulled out of an alleyway and onto a street, it came to an abrupt halt followed by a thump, nearly throwing Theo out of his seat.
“What the fuck!” Theo shouted. He looked out the front window to see Synapse, holding himself up against the hood of the car. Synapse looked up into the vehicle, looking directly at Theo. A look of recognition filled his stolen face, then he began shambling away in an attempt to run to the nearest apartment building entrance.
“Shit!” Theo said, having been made. He threw open the door of his vehicle and rushed into the street, drawing his revolver as he did so. “Boston Police! Freeze!” He shouted.
To Theo’s surprise, Synapse did stop, on the sidewalk just in front of the apartment’s front stoop. He turned toward Theo with his hands up.
“Get on the ground!” Theo said. Synapse replied only with a disconcerting smirk. “On the ground, now!” Theo insisted, emphasizing his words with his large gun. Synapse didn’t move. Theo took a step forward, then realized that Synapse wasn’t looking at him, but instead was looking past him. Theo glanced behind him only to see his vehicle; it’s door still wide open. As soon as he saw it, Theo realized what was about to happen.
The tires turned toward Theo and began to squeal as the vehicle quickly accelerated toward him. Theo dashed to the side, effectively dodging the hood of the car, but he couldn’t avoid the still open door. As it collided with his side, Theo wrapped his left arm over the door and lifted his legs, letting the vehicle take him. With the weight of his body, the door closed forcefully against his arm, causing him to yell out in pain.
The vehicle continued to accelerate with Theo caught in the door, making it to nearly 40 miles per hour before colliding with the apartment building wall and launching Theo into the bricks. Theo crumpled to the sidewalk, gasping from the wind being knocked out of him, but he remained alert. He tried to pick up his revolver with his left arm, only to find that he wasn’t able to lift it. He didn’t think twice, grabbing it with his right hand, and lumbered to his feet.
His vehicle started reversing, pulling itself free from the wall and the curb, but losing its front bumper in the process. As it reversed, it lined itself up with Theo in preparation for another charge. Theo, now on his feet, rushed forward and dove to the ground, barely avoiding what could have easily been a lethal collision. As he landed on the ground against his left side, he now felt an immense pain throughout his entire arm and ribcage.
“Ffffuuuck!” Theo cried, the cathartic action giving him just enough adrenaline to get back up and continue moving. He heard the shriek of his vehicle as it attempted to reverse again, but it was accompanied by a deafening metal clanking and no movement. Nonetheless, Theo didn’t stand still long enough to inspect the damage. Synapse was already gone, having moved into the apartment building.
Theo gave chase, quickly finding him moving into an open elevator. Theo rushed to catch it, but the doors were closing before Theo could reach him. Theo caught a glimpse of Synapse laughing before the doors shut completely. Theo immediately spammed the button to call the elevators in a futile effort. He looked up at the elevator status display just in time to see it glitch and change from the floor number to scrolling text.
The fat pig could use some exercise!
“God dammit!” Theo said, then quickly moved to the stairwell and began his journey upward. By the 3rd floor, Theo’s legs were like jelly, and by the 5th, Theo was completely out of breath and strongly considered giving up completely. After all, he had no idea what floor Synapse was getting off on. He paused only for a moment to reconsider his plan, and just as he was going to re-enable his wireless communications to call for backup, he heard a door slam open only a couple of floors above him.
“You still coming?” Synapse shouted down the stairwell. He was leaning over the railing, still twisting Amelie’s face into a wide grin. Theo continued his rush up the stairs. He could hear Synapse stumbling upward as well, heading for the roof of the building. Despite his exhausted state, Theo was quickly gaining on Synapse. He was only seconds behind him through the roof access door. Theo whipped around with his weapon raised in his right hand.
“FREEZE!” Theo shouted, much louder this time. He hoped that was all that was needed, and for a moment, it seemed that it was. Synapse had stopped and turned toward Theo. The detective’s instinct was to rush Synapse and knock him to the ground. They were separated by only ten feet, after all, but Synapse was closer to the edge of the building than he was to Theo. “Get on the ground, NOW!” Theo said. Synapse started laughing. He glanced behind himself, then back to Theo.
“Sure, it’ll take about 2 seconds, but first, I just want to ask...” Synapse said. Theo knew exactly where this was going, and he was starting to panic. Synapse continued, “You wanna see something really scary?”
The revolver, took longer to line up with Synapse’s leg than normal, partly by it being in Theo’s off-hand and in-part due to not being supported by his other hand, but it was primarily the stress and adrenaline running through his body. When he was finally able to sight in, just as he was about to squeeze the trigger, he was interrupted by an ear-shattering scream.
Amelie had been given back control of her body, but it was immediately evident that she had not been given complete control over her eyes. Her expression was that of unbridled fear. Her primary focus was on Theo, but she was glancing in every direction, with an ostensibly new fear response at everything she saw. Theo removed his finger from the trigger and raised his hand, trying to placate her.
“Amelie! It’s okay! It’s me, Theo!” He said with a soft tone, but a loud volume to cut through her terrified whimpering. “If you can hear me, please, come this way!” Theo took a tentative step toward Amelie.
“No! Stay away!” She shouted. Her hands were out, trying to shield her face from Theo’s image. She took a step back, keeping her distance from him and approaching the edge.
“Please! Amelie! Come away from the edge!” Theo said, just as she glanced behind her to see the gap between the buildings.
Amelie looked back at Theo, and in that moment, he could see exactly what she was thinking. As soon as she saw the drop, she had found a way out, and had already made the decision. Just as she started turning away from him, Theo dashed forward, throwing his weapon aside.
The girl took a step over the short concrete barrier. Theo leaped as far as he could with his arm outstretched. He hit the floor and slid forward, nearly over the building himself, but as Amelie dove into the gap, Theo’s fingers were only able to brush her ankles. His fist closed tightly around thin air, and now there was nothing left to do but watch her fall. Her scream seemed to get louder as she fell away from him, the sound echoing off the brick walls, before it was cut short, interrupted by the loud vibrations of the sheet-metal fence she landed on.
The sharp metal completely severed one of her arms and nearly cut her torso in half. For a few seconds, Theo could see her struggle, trying futilely to remove her other arm from the fence. Theo didn’t need to zoom in to see that she was still looking up at him. Tears fell from her eyes, there was a final spasm, and she became completely motionless.
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[i] Passthrough: People with cybernetic eyes have the ability to set their vision to passthrough only, which allows the brain to receive exactly what the eye sees without the interface overlay. Users with fully prosthetic eyes have a passthrough setting, while users who have organic eyes with a display-mesh or a full BSI also have the ability to disable digital components completely without affecting vision.