Thanks for reading this story! I hope you enjoy it. I'll be releasing parts whenever I can, so please favorite and follow it if you want updates. Please review so I can know what I need to do to make this story the best possible. Thanks!

Norman Jayden

Sunday, April 12, 2012

2:45 a.m.

The Central Park Carousel

"ARI comment, victim's name is Tyler Barns, age 18, clean record, no local family. He goes to…Hunter College, lives in an apartment not far from there." Special Agent Norman Jayden of the FBI recorded his initial findings into his Added Reality Interface, or ARI for short. ARI was his special companion, his dirty little secret, the cause of his horrible addiction, the addiction that caused him to go absolutely crazy, seeing hallucinations of little tanks that he should've only seen with Ari. Well, it WAS the cause of his addiction, along with Triptocane, but he had kicked that, flushed it straight down the toilet. Now without the Tripto, Jayden hadn't gone through withdraw in 5 months and 7 days. He'd been counting.

Jayden continued with his investigation, "The body is located on the Central Park Carousel. That's only a couple miles from the college, even less from his apartment…..interesting. I need to check out that apartment."

Norman was one of the best agents in the Bureau, and one of the most well-known. 6 months ago was when he hit it big. The Origami Incident, as he now referred to it, had been his claim to fame, Norman "single-handedly" catching the Origami Killer, Private Detective and former police officer Scott Shelby, and defeating him in a one-on-one battle atop a trash conveyor belt, leading to a waste compactor. I think you can tell how that one ended.

"Good god….ARI comment, cause of death seems to be exsanguination due to the multiple hack, slash, and stab wounds covering the victims face, neck, and torso. This is could be the modus operandi of the Butcher of Manhattan." The Butcher of Manhattan. A name Jayden had been hearing a lot for the past couple weeks. This guy got off on the pain of others, torturing them, killing them very slowly. His victims are always mutilated, their bodies littered with wounds from sharp objects. If this is the Butcher, this'll be victim number 6.

"From the looks of the cutting marks, it appears that the murder weapon was a serrated combat knife or machete…damn, it's too dark to tell." The murder weapon had still not determined. It had to be hand crafted, as there were no matches to it anywhere that Jayden could find. " I'll have to pick up the coroner's report after the autopsy, see if this one had some identifiable markings on him. Alright, that's it on the body, now to the surrounding area."

As Norman began to scan the carousel, he heard the all too familiar "whoop" of police sirens, and the flash of the car lights, signaling his exclusive, red carpet investigation of the crime scene was over. He whipped around right as the usual questions start flying.

"HEY! Who the fuck are you?" the fat cop, doughnut in hand, screamed as he approached the guy in the suit, who he had never seen. He hated suits. They always got in the way.

"Special Agent Norman Jayden, I work for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I'm here to inves…"

"Great, we got a Bureau guy here. Hey Tommy, you hear that? We got a freaking Bureau guy here." The fat cop interrupted Jayden, which he did not appreciate in the slightest. Did this fat ass know who he was?

"I freaking hate the Bureau!" This so called Tommy guy screamed from his car. Jayden didn't get what it is with these grunt cops and hating the Bureau, but he was getting sick and tired of it. They could at least talk about him behind his back, that way he didn't have to hear the bull crap spewing all over the place.

"Look, I'm just going to get out of your hair. I got all I need for now. Here's my card, contact me when you learn something." Jayden said as he made a beeline for his car. He needed to get out of here before he snapped on these cops. Ever since the Origami Incident, with his good "pal" Carter Blake, it seemed like he didn't trust cops, and cops definitely didn't trust him

He left his card on the dashboard of the fat one's car. He doubted that someone as stupid as that knew how to use a cell phone, let alone would find anything that he hadn't, so he was pretty much wasting a perfectly good piece of paper.

He had almost gotten to his car when he saw them. Reporters. The scum of the Earth. And they were blocking his car in. And that's when he heard it, the questions he got every time: "Norman, what can you tell us about the current case?!" and "Norman, how are you doing (insert amount of time) after the Origami Incident?"

"Do you not get by now that I'm not at liberty to discuss current investigations?" Norman screamed to himself. He never addressed the second question. For the past six months, all he's heard about is how he "singlehandedly" defeated the Origami Killer, Scott Shelby, and saved Shaun Mars' life, which, is not true. He had the much needed help of Ethan Mars, Shaun's father, and Madison Mars (formerly Madison Paige), a former war correspondent/investigative journalist turned local news columnist and Ethan's wife.

Norman got in his car, successfully dodging the microphones, cameras, and questions and drove away. Now he could finally have the peace and quiet he so desperately needed. He decided to review the facts he had so far.

"Alright Norman," he said to himself, about to try and make sense of this mess, "let's review the facts. ARI, personal comment. It looks like this is the doing of the Butcher of Manhattan, but I can't be certain on that. We don't actually know if there is a 'Butcher of Manhattan', all we have is 5 unsolved cases that seem to have a connecting MO, in that the victims are brutally stabbed to death, and they have a typed letter folded up in their right hands. The letter is a different quote from a different source of media every time, and there is no correlation at all between the quotes. But this kid had no paper on him, not in his hand, not in his pocket, nowhere. For the first time in a while, I feel stumped. This is an all too real reminder of the shit I went through during the Origami Affair. Right now, the only thing I have to go on is the assumption this is the work of the Butcher of Manhattan and the location of Tyler's apartment. I guess that's where I start." And that's where Norman did start. Right after breakfast…