The door bursts open just as she drops out of the window onto the fire escape. She vaults over the side, dropping down a story at a time until she lands in an alleyway next to the hotel.
Smoke was pouring out of the window above her head, and the sirens of the fire engines were added to the policemen's wailing ones. She ran down the alley, dodging dumpsters and rats, hood pulled up against the driving rain.
Her phone rings a few times, notifying her that Leo has answered.
Leo: You know I don't just give hints. Where's the fun in just telling you when I can make it pointlessly convoluted?
She doesn't have time to answer him right away. She walks among the rush-hour crowd, trying to get as far from the site as possible. Finally, she ducks into a McDonald's a few miles away to dry off, and manages to answer. It was almost half an hour later.
Roscoe: I'm not in the mood for your mind games. Just ruined another hotel room.
Roscoe: That makes three this month.
Roscoe: I miss the days when I almost never had to set hotel rooms on fire.
Leo: I would say that sounds bad on your part but I am in no way in the grace to be anyone's digital conscious.
Leo: Oh well, I guess I withheld enough. Three up, ten right. You may figure out the rest.
She grins angrily, squeezing the phone perhaps a little tighter than necessary. Another goddamn riddle. But hidden within her anger was a sparkling smile. Challenge invigorated her like a shark that smelled blood. Her mind was already clicking through the clue, finding the most likely meaning.
Roscoe: I needed to destroy some evidence. They've gotten their fingers into the government here, too. I forgot.
Then, in response to the hint,
Roscoe: Thanks, kiddo. I owe you one.
She loves calling him "kiddo," considering he had once accidentally revealed he was younger than her. Perhaps conversing with a diabolical, psychopathic mastermind behind thousands of worldwide catastrophes would be more intimidating if he wasn't so personable. She looks around the McD's, and decides it isn't too late to test out her first possible lead- The mathematical coordinates of the house she had been lead to here in Barcelona. (Or, it was supposed to have been a house. She had actually found a parking lot. )
She plugs them in, plus 3 degrees north and 10 degrees right and gets the address of a pool hall down the street. Perfect. She shoves the phone into her pocket, gathers her meager possessions and walks back out into the rain. Her short, black hair is plastered to her forehead, and drips on her shoulders as she walks, smiling, towards the next stop. She had a good feeling about this one.
At the dingy bar in question, waitress sighs and pushes a plate of food in front of her without asking for her order. A bar food version of a burger, fries, and a shake. Floating on top of the shake was a note with a well-drawn pair of hands clapping.
She punches the air triumphantly, startling the waitress. She had found it! Every time she solved another one of his riddles she felt a tiny burst of euphoria. She munches on the fries as she carefully turns the note over, patting it dry with her napkin and inspecting every crinkle, crease, and stain. He had once hidden the next target's initials in the creases of a pair of trousers- ingenious, but it had made her cautious to check everything she thought was connected to him for hidden messages. The cuffs of the hand bore the name old man Winshire, on the other hand, Moraine. Her phone dings with a message.
Leo: I do believe my art skills are improving. Also, leave in the next, dare I say... ten minutes.
Roscoe: Yeah, they're nice hands. Well-defined.
The breakneck collections and movements were pretty much standard fare for her by now. She wolfs down the last of her burger, tucks the note into her pocket, and stands. She pays hastily, exiting through the back door and creeping through the winding street behind the restaurant. That was one thing she loved about Spain. The streets were dark, long, and full of twists and turns. It was easy to lose anyone tailing her in them.
Leo: There will be an old house on the lake pier. You'll find the doors unlocked with all the bare essentials inside…as well as my next clue.
Roscoe: Ah! You shouldn't have.
She quickly finds the coordinates of the lake online. It takes her the better part of an hour to locate the house- it was hidden deep in the forest, and disguised by the vegetation growing on it. She opens the door, and reaches for the key that she knew would be on the right of the door. It was a small ritual they'd unconsciously developed. There'd always be, in a residence he had selected, a table, or chair, or hook, or nail to the right of the door that held the key. It was like a little signal that the place hadn't been tampered with. She finds the small loop of keys, notes the color and weave of the lanyard, and locks the door behind her. She sheds her coat immediately, dumping the sodden garment on top of the radiator to dry out. She keeps the lights off, preferring a small, handheld flashlight that couldn't be seen from the windows. That taken care of, she begins looking around for the next clue. Knowing him, it would be in plain sight, but still cryptic enough to leave her puzzling over it for days.
In the bedroom was a TV and a VCR player, ready to be pushed in was the movie Scooby do and the ghoul school. On the screen written in the dust was a circle, with an arrow pointing to it. Next to it was wide, open lettering spelling MIN 54.
She shakes her head, smiling. Easy peasy. She takes a photo of the dusty shapes in the screen and the VCR tape, and then pushes it in, so that it could play. She considers skipping to the time marked, but instead finds herself relaxing on the floor. It was a silly movie, but maybe she needed some silliness in her life. Slowly, it approaches the 54-minute mark, and she leans forward, taking out her notepad.
The movie showed the villain falling directly to her demise where the circle laid... a false clue. What Leo would have seen as either a expert prank or way to get her to relax somewhere.
Jen leans back, pausing the video and replaying the scene over and over again until she finally gets that it isn't a clue at all. At first, she's angry, and then she starts laughing. Slowly at first, then more, louder. This was actually pretty funny. She watches the rest of the movie, just out of curiosity. Everything was tied up neatly in the end- all the lovers reconciled, all the loose ends knit back together. She yawns, and switches off the television. How long had it been since she had slept? She kept forgetting.24... 26 hours? Maybe more. Didn't matter. She fishes her phone out of her pocket, and texts him, smiling.
Roscoe: Hahaha. That wasn't a clue at all- the clue was the hands. Very funny.
Roscoe: You don't have to spend all your time leading girl gumshoes on wild-goose chases; you could always be a comedian. Or an artist. Or pretty much anything else.
She yawns, frowning. Maybe she was more tired than she thought.
Leo: perhaps the clue was "time to settle down" I've cut off all leads to your location, now sleep before you pass out.
Roscoe: I don't need to sleep while you're working. I can solve this case- I'm right there. I know it.
"There" was the place right before the final realization- the moment before the "Aha!" moment. She was often "right there," before she fell ass-first into a huge tangle of more clues, more misdirection, and more travelling. She reaches into her backpack, picking up some photos of various dignitaries- a few labeled with the villains connected to them- and spread them out, scrutinizing them and their Wikipedia pages carefully. Looking for weak links. She falls asleep that way, too, curled up on the floor in front of the television, the Wikipedia page for Queen Elizabeth open on her laptop, casting a quiet light over her.
Leo: Fine then...One more riddle clue, one night of sleep you work obsessed thing.
Leo: God, I feel like a digital nanny...inanny... I may patent that.
She wakes up a few hours later, stretching her fingers. She despised waking up- part of the reason she didn't sleep. It took her a few minutes to be able to think clearly and coherently. She was dry now, the warm air in the cabin having leeched the moisture out of her clothing. She opens her phone, checking for messages, and smiles.
Roscoe: Pretty sure Apple's very touchy about the "I" trademark
Roscoe: You could get sued. Besides, the sort of people who would need an inanny aren't the sort of people who would want one.
Her mouth tastes horrible, so she stands and walks over to the bathroom. Bare essentials- toothbrush, toothpaste. Check. She brushes her teeth, becoming more aware, and then becomes aware of a fierce longing for a cigarette. She then, a few seconds later, becomes aware that she burnt them all in her hotel room, and sighs. So much for that plan.
Leo: Ah good, you got a night's sleep, now I don't have to compromise this little game of ours~
Leo: Don't bother looking for those disgusting sticks of chemicals you know I wouldn't stock them.
Roscoe: Wow, brutal.
Roscoe: I shoulda known there was no hope.
She takes a quick shower- cold, to banish the last of her sleepytime fuzziness, and walks back out into the main room of the cabin. She should probably be gone from here by... She sets a deadline. 3:30 PM. That would be the right time to be on track to her next clue. She takes the names that were written on the gloves and plugs them into Google, pulling up a few articles. This would take some time to decipher.
Winshire, descendants of blah blah blah, current descendants Moraine Winshire is under fire over latest horror movie being another snuff film. Many people believe that the actress is using her acting career to fund a drug ring, though they have been confronted by the histrionic star multiple times.
Leo: snuff films have always been on my black list.
Jen's dangerous smile seems to come through in her response.
Roscoe: Excellent.
Leo: as always the travel is free of charge, now if you'll excuse me am going to blow up a mans house who keeps trash talking me on the addictively fun game...
Roscoe: Have fun, stay safe.
She does some digging online, using a couple of passcodes she'd gotten as a reward from her last job, as well as greasing a few virtual palms with her small personal income. Old-fashioned information trawling needed no hints. Eventually she extracts an address, two cities away in a smallish town.
As she packs up her belongings for the second time that "day," or really, that 24-hour period (the travel more or less demolished her conventional concept of days) she sighs. It was nice, calming even, to know that she wouldn't be suddenly chased out of this sanctuary by someone wanting to stop her investigations. She texts her friend- no, her business partner, even though she knows he won't answer until later.
Roscoe: Thanks for the sanctuary. I'm going now. See you later, probably.
The "probably" was an occupational hazard. Every moment that probably could become a never. She leaves the door open like she found it, but puts the keys on the ground to the right of the door- another signal. The fastest train to Mortiary's address was leaving in half an hour, she learned at the train terminal. It had a few seats left. She purchases one, and sits down to wait, pulling out her laptop to jot down her notes from the past few days. It was always good to have a record of her notes on her computer, if she, say, had to burn all her physical evidence. She would keep it all on the hard drive if she didn't need physical things- photographs and baggies and drawings- in order to think and make connections.
On the ride there, she catches a few short naps in between reading a book, one of the few she had downloaded to her computer. She used to love detective novels, but now they hit a little too close to home. She was instead engrossed in a sci-fi/fantasy novel, not really reading the words. She tried hard to stay alert, and only left her seat to go to the dining car and buy some new cigarettes, although she wasn't allowed to smoke them on the train.
Two hours later, it pulls into the dusty terminal at an obscure Spanish town. She leaves quickly and hurriedly, hood pulled up to cover her face from surveillance. The address wasn't hard to find- she didn't want to risk looking it up on her phone, thanks to the remote nature of the town and the fact that the broadcasting service might be being watched. Instead, she scrolled through some current events feeds while waiting for his response. She didn't want to go in blind. As promised the news shows a home bombing with no evidence. Her phone pings.
Leo: hey... do you still consider us as friends?
She ducks into an adjacent place- apparently a tea shop- to answer, as well as to reconnaissance the home.
Roscoe: Of course we're friends.
Roscoe: I just can't let that interfere with my investigation, is all.
She spends several tense minutes waiting, her hand on the enter key to send an apology. He didn't seriously think things could continue the same way after he had revealed he was not only on the kill lists of at least 24 countries, but needed her help to get rid of a lot of undesirables, ones that happened to align with her own personal distaste- after she's biked, rode, flown, and hitchhiked all over the world, playing his game and making the world a better place one person at a time. He didn't think that, right?
Leo: The next clue is free; wineshires accusers have been right from the start.
His response puts her worries at ease, and she smiles, responding,
Roscoe: As I suspected. Are we going the usual- find evidence, and report 'em? Or the vigilante justice kinda thing? Because I really think a video confession posted all over the Internet would suit the crime.
Sometimes it was unclear which one of them was the villain.
Leo: Execution for this. You'll find the gun in the bushes behind her home. As always, calling the police is your risky out card for killing.
Roscoe: Gotcha, chief. See you later.
She bites her bottom lip nervously. Assassination always made her nervous. But really, filming another person dying was a horrible thing. Sadistic. They deserved it. She exits the teashop, ignoring the angry glares of the owner at having not bought anything. Quietly, she creeps into the backyard, hiding behind a shed first, then a bush. She shimmies along the fence, thanking god that she wasn't too wide to fit in the tiny gap between the bushes and the wooden barrier. A gun lies in front of her, and the handle feels comforting in her hand. She checks the chamber- Four bullets. No chance for failure.
She slowly moves across the lawn, watching the windows of the house for signs of movement. She takes out the piercing from her right ear- an unusual design, with a thin, bendable wire hanging down. After a few intense minutes, she manages to pick the lock. The wire is stuffed into her pocket, and she turns the doorknob. The moment she does, she hears a quick, scared intake of breath from by the door. She opens it in a flash, and then steps back against the doorframe, blocking something that he was swinging at her- a vase.
It crashes into her forearm, and the shock travels all the way to her shoulder. She frowns, eyes stinging at the pain, but raises her gun; stepping forward and driving him back against the wall. She presses the nose of the gun to his ribs, his own flesh muffling the sound.
One shot, two shots. He falls to the floor, eyes rolling back into his head.
She hears a few people into the teashop scream- they heard the gunshots. She casts the limp movie mogul aside, walking into the actual house. On high alert, she texts Leo cautiously.
Roscoe: Is the other one here in this house too...?
Leo: no, there shouldn't... Give me a second.
A few tense moments pass on Jen's end.
Leo: Run now. Take the drop the gun in the alleyway trash of the second house, someone knew of my plan...
Jen turns and exits, quickly stuffing the gun into her jacket. When she's a block away, she looks back- there's a white van parked outside the house. She drops the gun where suggested, but doesn't stop running to text him, resulting in some rather interesting spelling.
Roscoe: Fuick, I"m sorrt.
She stops around another corner a few minutes later, near the town hall, to catch her breath.
Roscoe: *fuck *I'm *Sorry
Roscoe: I'm leaving for France imminently, checking out Moraine.
It was a snap decision, but one that made sense. The address she had gotten for him was in Nice's general area, and so it would be good to start there. In fact, it would be good to be literally anywhere but this town right now.
Leo: The game's almost over you know, one last criminal and all of this goes right back to normal.
She walks calmly back towards the train terminal, going through alleyways and back streets to avoid her pursuers.
Roscoe: But normal is boring!
Roscoe: This is like... Just like a novel, or something. Excitement! Guns! Clues! Mystery!
Leo: but an ongoing story is non-sensical. It must end somewhere, don't worry. It's a good ending.
She sighs, looking down the rails for the train that would take her far, far away from here.
Roscoe: I hope so.
There's a pause of a few seconds before she texts again.
Roscoe: Do we get to meet? In the end?
Roscoe: I mean, I don't even know what you look like, you're so secretive.
She doesn't get to read his answer until she's put her backpack on the train rack and settled down into her seat. By then, the shock is numbed slightly. She opens the client and looks at it, blinking slowly.
Leo: well of course! I'm the next target.
Roscoe: Haha, I knew the last clue would be the hardest. What, is it the numerical value of "I'm?" Or perhaps the square root of the time it was sent?
She genuinely doesn't believe him, although it's unclear whether she's shielding herself from believing him simply because she doesn't want to.
Leo: Nope. I'm tired of having to defend the title of villainy from every one with a half cocked plan and slightly skewered moral compass. And to be honest I rather not give anyone else the satisfaction
It takes almost half a minute for her to reply.
Roscoe...
Roscoe: I can't do that.
Leo: the next clue is waiting for you when you get off, it's been fun playing
Roscoe: Wait!
Leo has logged off
She frowns. It was too late.
She puts her phone back in her bag, spending the rest of the train ride puzzling over it. He couldn't be serious. Right?
She keeps these questions boiling in her mind, Was he serious? And if he was... would she do it?
He's your friend.
No, he's your business partner. You said so yourself.
He's nice.
To you. Has your conscience been corrupted that much? He's just as evil as all the others you've been taking out.
Looking for her at the train station was the waitress. Knowing that this was her last job, she wore joggers casual. She stares at Jen expectantly.
Jen walks over to her, defeated. Her mind was still chasing itself in circles.
He's your friend...
She grins at the waitress, a dead-man's grin. "Greetings. Time to settle down?" It was the only word that hadn't played into his plot thus far, so she had to expect it was a passcode.
"Yeah, finally done carrying around cryptic-ass doodles for the kid." She hands you a pad of paper and starts jogging away, most likely never to be seen again.
Jen feels a little bit melancholy, watching her retreating back. It was the first real sign that this was coming to an end. She sighs, flipping open the pad of paper and examining its contents. It was a drawing of a hiker standing in front of three stylized gates, one is an Italian renaissance archway, and the second and ancient Egyptian and the third simplified Japanese or Chinese. Above it all was the statement: "decisions, decisions"
Jen chews on her thumbnail as she considers the cryptic piece of paper. She could only assume that this meant she had three options of where to go. Or that only one was correct. She sits at the train terminal, pulling open her laptop and searching up the architectural styles of the gates. They were each real places- on different continents. She translates the lettering on them quickly, using an image-to-language program she'd found a while ago. The Japanese gate was a part of an old Shinto temple, an ironic place for a villain hideout, but it wasn't his style. The Italian gate was located outside of a nice modernized village. The Egyptian was just a spot in some ruins.
She taps her fingers on the sides of her computer, frowning. Her choice now was one that could mean the difference between days or weeks of travel to a fruitless point of reference. She quickly switches between the real life images and the drawn ones, thinking. This was a new kind of puzzle. A personality test- a way to determine if she had been paying attention. She smiled, selecting the Italian gate as her first target. That wouldn't be far from here. And besides- it seemed like him. The vines on it were lovingly rendered in a fashion incongruous with something sketched from a photo. She carefully writes down the coordinates on the back of the drawing, and uses her computer to plot a course to them.
"Tally-ho." She mutters, unenthusiastically. There were no trains leaving here for that area of Italy, and no airport in the city. She could either take the train to another city and catch a second train from there, or she could drive. She chooses the first option- although she did love the motif of a detective and their sweet ride; a train was cheaper and safer. You couldn't destroy one without harming all the innocent civilians inside.
Upon boarding the car, she is greeted by the sight of multiple darkly dressed men and women in the other train cars. The train leaves the station after a rumbling start. Train attendants with downcast eyes start herding people into the compartments above and below Jen's.
Jen frowns, wishing she hadn't thrown away that gun earlier. She attempts to remain calm, her fingers drumming out a rapid beat on her thigh. She had always had a plan for this- a single tap would erase her computer's memory entirely, and a cigarette sewn into the lining of her coat was loaded with thallium. But it wasn't time for such drastic measures just yet. She chooses one of her non-poisoned ones and casually lights it, keeping her eyes on the suited people. It was becoming increasingly obvious they were the only ones left in the car. Her phone pings in the commotion.
Leo: Ok, remember what I said about half cocked plans and partially skewered plans? Well I overlooked one, though of course I am never caught off guard. Side of the seat, my friend. You'll know what to do.
Leo has logged off.
She takes out her phone causally; reading the message like it was an invitation to her sister's baby shower. She nods once, and texts back for appearances.
Roscoe: Skewed. S-k-e-w-e-d. A skewered plan would be if someone stabbed it in the middle.
She powers the phone off, and puts it in her pocket. She pretends to look up, see the "no smoking" sign on the ceiling, and frown. She grinds her cigarette on the plastic arm of her chair, but loses her hold on it and it falls behind her seat. She twists, reaching down to pick it up- the picture of a conscientious citizen.
Her hand instead finds the handle of a semi-automatic. Nice. She yanks it out, anchoring it to her shoulder in one smooth move, and turns, firing thrice through the glass partition around the door to get the suits on the other side. It begins raining glass and bullets- she turns on her heel, dodging return fire, and offs the shooter with a straight plug to the chest. Every normal person was out of the car by now- thank god.
Anyone not killed by the first firing was injured and out of the fight. The others ducked and drew out concealed hand pistols, weapons for the henchmen of those less planned and well informed. They fire a few rounds of suppressive fire.
She's weapons-trained, but not a superhero. She feels some of the bullets hit- upper arm. Side. One grazes her forehead, but isn't on the right trajectory to enter her skull. She takes the time to run a sleeve across the stinging wound, which just serves to move the blood around, not away. She anchors her injured arm against her chest, and picks off someone's hand as it emerges from the seat to fire at her. She hears an anguished scream as the tiny bones are immolated.
She begins moving forward, one seat at a time. Every once in a while she reaches over the seat, picking off a henchman to keep the other's heads down. At this rate, she wasn't sure there'd be any left once she got there. A voice comes out of her phone- hadn't she turned it off? The words were clear and well spoken, with all trace of an accent trained out. Even through the bad reception on the train, though a trace of smug self-satisfaction shows through. " There, I hacked into the voice box of your phone. Hope you don't mind, but it's easier than a text."
She's not sure if he can hear her, but she responds quietly. She doesn't want them to catch wind of exactly where in the blown-out train car she was.
"Sweet, that's fine with me. I'm kind of-" She ducks a bullet that flies just over her ear. "busy right now, though."
"Now now,I decided that you would prefer a method of travel that allows you to slowly kill your lungs...duck now please."
She obeys, covering her head with her arms for good measure. "Why?"
She could hear piercer rounds whizzing past her head in a hailstorm of bullets. They left a trail of seat stuffing and ripped fabric in their wake, and it falls on top of her gently. She brushes it off, looking like the Ghost of Industrial Foams Past. She frowns, leaning to the side of her seat just in time to catch some unlucky mook in the shoulder. She hadn't known they had that sort of firepower- It was a miracle they hadn't used it when she'd been clambering over seats earlier.
"Do I still have to answer?", the smug voice says. God, she didn't think he would sound so smug. Leo would have heard the gunshots through the phone.
"No." She grits her teeth, dropping to the ground and sliding under the seat to advance towards the locus of henchmen. She sees a barrel begin to protrude from a few seats in front of her and hastily takes cover behind another seat, pulling her feet up.
Well-placed shots disable each enemy in turn, leaving an almost taunting color trail to where their heads used to be. A self-driving car drives next to the train,which has been cut open with magnesium trail lines. Jen's phone calls again. "Your chariot...No that also sounds like a smug thing to say...anyways,jump."
She finishes his quote "My chariot awaits. Thanks." She quickly calculates the distance between the car and the train, rolling to the side and firing a few parting shots blindly in the general direction of the few remaining gunmen. She leaps out of the train car, slamming painfully into the backseat of the car. The door closes behind her.
"Please plug me into the central console. You know, I got the idea from this rather interesting horror videogame called Soma. You should play it after this."
She reaches into her backpack, taking out her cord, and hunts for the USB port on the hub as they make their high-speed getaway, peeling off into verdant Italian countryside. Or rather, she made her high-speed getaway. He was back in his lair, or fortress, or wherever villains were supposed to reside these days. Finally, she plugs it in, putting the phone on the central console. She would add that game to her After This list, among with so many other things. She had to constantly be on guard- the hunt took up all her time. Most activities were going to have to happen After This.
"Alright, sounds cool as heck. "
In reaction to the hacked phone being introduced, the car swerves slightly. "Tell me... How high do you think the stakes of a game should be?" There was something off in his voice, a subtle change in tone, like he was dreading the answer.
"A videogame? Or this game?" She settles back in her seat, buckling her seatbelt as a feeble farce of security. "Because the worst that should happen is Game Over. You start over. "
"But where's the fun in that? I know you enjoy a challenge so have one. One life, of course."
She sighs. "Yeah. I can hear thousands of angry gamers wondering who the hell designed this game. Graphics are great, gameplay is terrible. Jump arc too low." She's in safety now, and so can inspect her wounds. The one through her side hurt the most, since it had gone right through her- Literally, in the front and out the back. The right side of her shirt was soaked in blood, and she presses her hand against the wound. The one in her arm had missed any arteries or tendons, thank god, and had probably passed through a seat before it had gotten to her, since it hadn't gone in deep enough to hit bone. But it still hurt like the very devil.
"You will find a medical kit behind the chair," he says, displaying that uncanny ability to guess what she was thinking. She extracts it and opens the container. A perfectly arranged set of medical supplies- most of them specialized for gunshot wounds- greeted her. She smiles. "Alright, awesome. Hey, you can't see into this car, right? "
She nods and takes off her shirt, selecting one of the sterile cotton pads and pressing it against the wound on her side. She carefully winds a bandage around it, maintaining pressure. She's done this many, many times before. She switches to the wound in her arm, and uses the tweezers and forceps to extract the bullet, dampening a scream. God, did that hurt. She has to center herself for a moment before she can continue. She treats the wound the way she did the other one, spraying it with antiseptic to clean it before bandaging it. The offending lump of metal she deposits in the cup holder, seeing nowhere else to put it. Finally, she wipes off her face. The cut on her forehead is already scabbed over, so she settles for a series of band-aids. Those essential tasks completed, she puts her blood-soaked shirt back on, figuring it was better than no shirt at all.
"Okay. I'm good now." Her breathing is still a little ragged, but she sounds better.
The car swerves a little bit, slowly peeling away to the left. "Lovely~ Now a few questions and the game is over. The next clue will be given and we both won't die by crashing a car into a train."
"Is there train-car crashing in the future? " She greets the prospect with excitement.
"Maybe, but I make no such promises." The dishonesty in his voice said, yes there will be explosions. "Let's see if your memory serves us both well. What was the first clue i issued you on our little crusade?"
"That is correct. I had a special grudge for most fake monsters but bunnyman had a special place in the deepest parts of hatred."
She laughs. "I remember that we used to tell that story a long time ago- My family did, I mean, when we went camping. It scared the living hell out of me. "
"Aww,that sounds so heartwarming... aaaand that's when I know I need to retire from being a villain..." Given that she answered correctly, he swerved away from the train.
"Next question. I'll make this the last because we're coming to a cliff. What was the first drawing clue I gave you?"
Oh, no. This one was hard. She could see the cliff coming up in front of them- was he accelerating? The bastard was accelerating. She drums her fingers on the side of the car. The first three had been writing. One map. Coordinates... that led to... "It was that sketch of Mona Lisa with a blindfold on in the geocache, right? " Her voice cracks on the last word, an indicator of her nervousness as they get closer to the cliff.
He performs an urgent U-turn, grass spraying from under the wheels of the car. The door opens and she's thrown out, skidding to a stop on the ground. She looks up in time to see the car beeline for the train, ramming and exploding against it, causing a very lovely chain reaction. A new phone lands next to her on a silver parachute.
She catches the phone easily, standing and rubbing her shoulder where it ground against the grass. She could see him contact info was preloaded onto it, but wasn't sure he had hacked his voice into it yet. Just to be on the safe side, she texts.
Roscoe: Woo-hoo! Awesome!
Roscoe: Is it a physical impossibility for you to not do something in the most dramatic way possible?
Leo: Yes,if I leave something underdone it bothers me about how spectacular and death defying it could have been.
Leo: Sorry, but you'll be walking for a bit. The drop off plane needed to be small enough to not be tracked.
Roscoe: That's fine, I like walking. Which direction?
Leo: North,away from the burning wreckage where the cops will soon be to investigate. Leo: Should I leave a calling card? They most likely know it's me already, but I feel especially dramatic.
Roscoe: Maybe a sequence of three notes, each at the edge of human hearing, repeating in an endless drone from inside a dismembered crow carcass.
Roscoe: Confuse the F#$% out of them.
Leo: But that carries no context with my former crimes... Maybe I'll have the sign for Leo carved into the doors.
Roscoe: That would be cool.
Roscoe: Alright, see you then.
She begins walking in the suggested direction. Eventually, she comes upon a road, and follows that. Past cows in their pastures, a couple horse stables, and fields of indeterminable crops. Finally, she arrives in a medium-sized town. It took almost a whole hour to walk there.
Roscoe: I'm here in.. Um.. can't really type the name on this keyboard, but it's pronounced like "Rillich."
Leo: Yes,it's abandoned. Took me awhile to find it but, the clues hidden with the town~
Roscoe: Dammit. You're never going to make this any easier, are you.
She'd had a specific grudge against town-wide clues ever since she had spent an entire month in an abandoned water park looking for a sequence of musical notes hidden among its thousands of signs.
Leo: And where's the fun in that?
Leo: Don't worry,there's an alarm in your new phone that goes off and gets louder as you get closer
Roscoe: Wow, thanks. Let's play a game of Hot-Cold in an abandoned town in the Italian countryside. Such fun.
She's smiling, though, and it shows through in her text.
Leo: Oh, look! You have a warrant for your arrest now! I wonder what for...
Roscoe: You mean another warrant. Besides the other twenty or thirty.
Roscoe: Arson, Murder, Jaywalking.
Roscoe: Just throw darts at the municipal authority's list of criminally punishable offenses and you'll land on something.
Leo: oh don't worry,you're nowhere near where I am yet.
Roscoe: You say that like it's a bad thing.
Leo: Besides, I'm sure bringing in a global criminal will clear your name.
Roscoe: It doesn't work that way. I'm thinking of creating a new identity after this. Starting anew, you know?
Leo: Maybe, I'll make sure to have your new identity ready.
Roscoe: You don't need to do everything, you know. I've got connections...
Leo: I know,but it is the least I could do.
Leo: And no, that's not an exaggeration. It's literally the least I could do.
Roscoe: Why? I mean, I'm 99% sure that any official detective would have accomplished this much faster, and without so many hints.
Roscoe: I'm just sort of bumbling around, developing strategies as I go.
Leo: Which makes it fun!~ If it was just done simply each time it would have been terribly boring...
Roscoe: I suppose you're right, then.
While they were conversing, she had walked into the town, through the winding streets. Every place had that same feeling of an area that should have been full of people, but wasn't- that windy feeling. Sidewalks were cracked by the roots of trees, and power lines were knocked across the street and never picked up. She had to climb over a few. Cars had dissolved into puddles of rust where they lay. It was all very open, and it put her on edge.
Her phone hadn't beeped at all, yet, and so she decided she'd need a little more knowledge to find it. In the town square she found a tourism map, peeling and cracked behind it's glass. There was a new coat of paint on a certain sector of the city, one containing the natural history museum, the library, and a few of the many historical statues that littered the streets. She decides it's worth a shot, snaps a picture, and starts walking to where the edge of the fresh paint was. As soon as she crosses the border of the sector, the beep went off with a rather annoying whoop of Woody Woodpecker's laughter.
Roscoe: How did I expect that.
She keeps walking down the street, choosing to go towards the library. It was as good a starting place as any- and besides, it had many places to hide a clue. She grins, walking through the library- Pausing for a moment to mourn for the books, falling apart as they are- towards the sci-fi section. Her phone was going insane now, with what sounded like air horns mixed into the beeps. She holds it out in front of her like a dowsing rod, scanning the shelves. Right in the middle is something that sticks out like a sore thumb- a new copy of Douglas Adam's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Next to it was a restored copy of the original I, Robot. Both books have a bookmark marking one of the pages. She can only assume one of these books is the clue.
She pulls I, Robot off the shelf, not really thinking the action through. It was her favorite of the two, a compilation of short stories about the hypothetical technological singularity. She opens it to the bookmark, careful not to bend the pages. Inside, she finds a page that's been covered by a piece of paper, printed with a code:
01111001 01101111 01110101 01110010 00100000 01100111 01100101 01110100 01110100 01101001 01101110 01100111 00100000 01100111 01101111 01101111 01100100 00100000 01100001 01110100 00100000 01110100 01101000 01101001 01110011 00101100 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01100011 01101111 01101111 01110010 01100100 01101001 01101110 01100001 01110100 01100101 01110011 00100000 01100001 01110010 01100101 00100000 00110100 00110011 00100000 01101100 01100001 01110100 01101001 01110100 01110101 01100100 01100101 00100000 01100001 01101110 01100100 00100000 00110001 00110001 00100000 01101100 01101111 01101110 01100111 01101001 01110100 01110101 01100100 01100101 00100000 00100000 00100000
She smiles, sitting down against the bookshelf to work it out. She opens her laptop- Of course there was no wifi. Duh. With a sigh, she picks up her book again, going to see if the library had any resources on binary code. Several adventures with the Dewey Decimal system later, she finds one that hadn't been ravaged completely by time. Working meticulously and slowly, she translates each letter. She ends up with something like: "You're getting good at this,43 latitude and 11 longattude."
She writes the message down, and then takes her phone's GPS, plugging in the coordinates. It was a mountain just outside Florence. About half an hour away by train, but she really didn't feel like taking another one after what had just happened. She walks back out into the street, shielding her eyes from the evening sun. After a few minutes, she finds what she's looking for- a red bike, hidden under the awning of an abandoned house. It had been protected from the worst of age by the roof, and still worked. Most importantly it wasn't locked up. She lifts the kick stands and pedals away, dumping her phone into the front basket so it can guide her. She turns on text-to-speech, allowing her to talk while still riding.
Roscoe: Very clever, that.
Roscoe: You spelled longitude wrong, though.
Leo: God dammit... Well, you know my location now,just hurry up and arrest me, or place me under citizen's arrest I guess...I don't even know.
Roscoe: I can't teleport, I'm only a level 20. :P
There's nothing but the whirring of the bicycle chain for a couple minutes.
Roscoe: Besides, isn't that kind of... undignified? I mean, we've uncovered how weak and ineffectual the government is.. you're just going to let them capture you like that?
Leo: Yes.
Leo: I lead them on a long enough chase. It's boring at this point in time. Arson just isn't as fun as it used to be...
She blows a chunk of hair out of her eye, turning the corner onto a forested road that would presumably take her into Florence. Engrossed in her conversation, she hardly notices two teenage boys until she has to swerve to avoid them, ringing her bell at them angrily. She's pretty sure one of them gives her the finger.
Roscoe: Come on, where's your sense of adventure?
Roscoe: It's not too hard to evade the system. You could become a normal, like me.
Leo: True,but then I can't write my gripping autobiography from behind a prison door and make multi millions while slowly taking over the prison from the inside out,creating my own personal monopoly~
Roscoe: Well, you'll be an unreliable narrator if I ever saw one.
Roscoe: You'd have thousands of professors debating what was true and what wasn't.
Leo: And I'll laugh on my new throne behind iron bars~
Leo: Maybe I'll add a few lies here and there~
She decides she's not going to go up a mountain on a bike, and instead circles the base, looking for a way in. It took her almost an hour to get there.
Roscoe: I'm sure it's absolutely thrilling to discuss your prospects in life, but I'm here at your...lair.
Roscoe: Do I need to climb the damn thing?
Leo: Why? There's an elevator on the north west side of the thing.
Roscoe: Thank you.
She ditches the bike in some bushes, walking around the mountain to the north-west side. She finds a likely-looking boulder, and behind it, an alcove. Set into the wall is some indentations in the shape of a keypad.
Roscoe: Alright, nerd. What's the passcode?
Leo: 9054.
Roscoe: Wow, a straight answer for once.
Roscoe: No equations? No obscure 1980's pop culture references? Are you feeling alright?
Leo: You beat the game. That's it. No more games or riddles. No more clues.
She takes a breath and plugs in the code. The rock face slides aside smoothly, revealing an aluminum tube. She steps in- there's barely enough space for one person in it. There's only one button on the wall, labeled in sharpie. THE END.
She presses it, and the lift starts up, pulling her through the mountain. After a short ride, the doors iris open, revealing a well-furnished waiting room, like one at a dentist's office. Beautiful, probably stolen paintings hang on the walls. She steps out, her combat boots clicking on the polished linoleum floor, leaving behind muddy footprints. She doesn't see anyone else, and she's at a loss for what to do. After a couple minutes of contemplation, she walks up to the receptionist's desk, and rings the bell there- a fairly standard bell, something she had done so many times before.
An android neatly unfolds from the wall, a generically female model with smooth, polygonal surfaces. It pretends to lean on the desk, looking critically at Jen. "Do you have an appointment?"
Jen fiddles with her sleeves, more nervous now than when she was gunning down handgun bearing hitmen on the train yesterday. "Um, I think so. I-I'm here to see Leo? "
"Please take a seat." It gave no indication it had heard her, and folds up into the wall. A soft beep emanates from somewhere. Jen stands there for a few more seconds, as if awaiting further instructions. When she realizes none are forthcoming, she sits down in one of the plush armchairs. She pulls out her computer, pretending to type something, but really just translating sentences in and out of different languages, as she always did when she got nervous.
She hears some clanking sounds behind her, as well as what sounds like something rubber being snapped. An almost painfully thin teenager stumbles in. He seems normal enough, with choppy brown hair and washed-out eyes that might have been brown, once, but now resembled green. At first, she thought his shirt was just on backwards, but looking closer, his hands were facing the wrong way. Everywhere from his neck down to his waist was switched around, facing away from her rather than towards her. He doesn't seem to be aware of this at all.
She stands, pushing the laptop to the side so it rests on her chair. She seems to be at a loss for words for a second, before she smiles tentatively. "Um... You must be Leo?" It's a question, not a statement.
"Yes, I...one second..." He screws up his face slightly as his body faces forward correctly. "And you must be Roscoe,lovely to meet you."
She gives him a weird look, like he had just.. well, just rotated his torso around through sheer willpower. "Jen, actually. Roscoe's my online alias. It's slang for 'detective."
He smiles, and nods. If he's surprised that she's a girl, he doesn't show it. "Ah yes, Well, Leo is short for London Entertainment Omnic."
"Omnic? Holy shit... You're a robot?" She hadn't imagined a robot. Of course she had imagined him- How could she not have, considering he took up every waking, and many sleeping, moments of the past year? But she had usually thought of him as a teenager, forced to grow up too fast, fingers poised over a keyboard as he leans into a communicator with one ear, urgently giving commands to his computer. She hadn't even considered that he was the computer. She's still reeling with this epiphany when he speaks again.
"What? I thought I made it rather clear when I picked I, Robot instead of the Hitchhiker book." He has the gall to look confused over her confusion.
"That wasn't clear at all!" Her original void of feeling gives way to a sense of betrayal, although she's not quite sure why. "There's no way- That was just another stupid clue!"
He rolls his eyes, but to her the expression doesn't seem genuine. That was probably just her new knowledge influencing her, though. "Yes, I left a old book that's semi-good next to a comedic wonder. Why would I do that?"
"First of all, I,Robot was great. Second of all, I don't know. " She's raising her voice slightly, crossing her arms. "It's not my job- Okay, it technically is my job- But honestly, that amount of inference would be insane!"
His brows lower, he's on the defensive now. "To you, maybe, but I thought I made it rather clear."
"As clear as an opaque-ass slab of concrete," She mutters. He rubs his chin, but the rubber "skin" there stretches briefly, revealing a mass of wires and circuits. He lets it fall back into place sheepishly.
She looks at it for a second, almost as though he's suddenly revealed he's a magical unicorn with fairy wings. She presses a hand to her forehead, closing her eyes. Her pulse slows, and she lets go of the anger that was simmering in her stomach with a single huff of breath. "I can't believe this," She growls into her hand, but after a few seconds, straightens back up with a faked grin that rapidly melts into a real one.
"Okay, let's start over. I'm Jen. You're Leo. And I have some questions. " She gestures expansively at the room, and whatever evil lair lay beyond it. "If you have a fully-functioning... body... Why did you stay here? I mean, why not go out yourself? It would have been more fun, probably. "
"Oh,I made this a few days ago." He flexes his hand, showing exactly which 'this' he was referring to. "Normally am stuck in a computer. " At her impudent expression he winces, waving his hand. "Yes, Yes, I know, more confusing and vague statements. Just grin and bare it for a bit..."
She sighs. "Alright. Honestly, I've been doing that for eleven months. A few more minutes wouldn't kill anybody."
"So,you want the convoluted and more confusing answer, or the straight answer?"
"Hm... Both."
He turns, leading her across the waiting room. He pauses at the wall, plugging in a code that makes it shift away, revealing a long, titanium-lined corridor. He talks as he walks, using his hands to outline the ideas. "Well, I was originally created to find out the next steps in human entertainment- you can thank me for the hiatus in Sherlock by the way. My prime objective was to find ways to entertain humanity as a whole,so I went rouge, as I figured rogue AI's were highly entertaining. Then, I got bored so I started to become a world crime lord. Natural progression, you see."
Upon finding out that he was responsible for the hiatus- something she had complained about to him before, before any of this, she grin angrily, pushing him with her shoulder. "Yeah, makes complete logical sense. So you set up this whole masquerade to entertain humanity? I must say, it was pretty entertaining from my perspective. "
He makes a magnanimous gesture, smiling. "Then I have succeeded an infinitesimal margin of my previous task. Now, I trust that clears up any confusion?" He arches a single eyebrow, and she tries to avoid think about how many motors were involved to arch that eyebrow.
"Well, not entirely. I know I might not have much knowledge of the edge of robotics, the final technological frontier, whatever. But... I thought robots couldn't have personalities? That the human brain, emotions, and such were too complex for relays and capacitors?" She peers at him, like she could see right through his fake skin to his clockwork heart. She's looking for reassurance, that he wasn't faking all their correspondences. Especially the ones before the game had begun.
He scowls at her, crossing his arms. "Okay, now you're just making it hard for yourself. Also, highly offensive!"
She winces, looking at the accusing glare. "Sorry. I'm not- This isn't normal, for me. There's no protocol for suddenly-finding-out-your-internet-friend-is-literally-a-robot."
"Not a robot. An Artificial Intelligence Unit." He smirks, obviously enjoying her discomfort.
"Artificial Intelligence Unit,' then," She corrects herself. She looks at him with a gesture of appeal, her hands spread. "So, what now? It's not like you could ever be arrested."
"Oh, that's why I made the body, so I could be arrested. It's specially made to recreate the normal functions of a human~"
The corridor abruptly ends, forming a catwalk. Above, around, and under them lie piles of art, gold, and technology. She looks around, her eyes gleaming with wonder. She was almost certain she saw a copy of the Andulian Mechanism. And- Was that the original Fairy Thief? She holds on to the raining, so she doesn't fall off. He smiles, a trifle patronizingly, at her enthusiasm. "And now you must be thinking, 'Where do I fit into all of this?" He has his hands behind his back, stolling as regally as his beanpole-style body can allow.
"Well ,that is rather simple. I needed your help to take the world back to a blank slate of evil. Erase the current super powers that rule the blackest dens of humanity so the world may form to newer threats and innovate themselves,thus ensuring their grim entertainment as they watch in awe to see which side shall ultimately prevail over the other. My prime objective will be completed and I may focus my intelligence onto other forms of entertainment... Maybe I'll get back in contact with Rebecca Sugar..."
She nods, then holds up a finger to stop his grand speech. "That sounds great, but for all your overarching, hyper-intelligent plans, you've overlooked something. Any cursory examination- Hell, even touching the thing- Will lead the police to realize this robotic body isn't a real person. Why would they not just disassemble it? It wouldn't be against any sort of capital punishment law. After all, there's no such regulation for machines. "
"Yes, Yes, but that's trivial. This is a prototype,a bio grade body is being created in a tube as we speak. It will be flown in to me by the time I have finished my trials, and thus I will have a examinable human body for them~"
"Wow, you've really thought of everything. "
She sighs, leaning against the rail slightly. "So that's it, then? No more... anything? The end?"
He doesn't appear to be listening to her. "Maybe I'll plan out years of occurrences out in a single day. It's lovely having a entire supercomputer as a brain, you know."
"But none of it will actually be happening. "
She frowns at him. "Don't you need reality? "
" Well...Yes, to an extent." He seems to be doubting himself now. His programmers give him such an undeniable sense of certainty that it was almost too easy to undercut it and have a year of planning go to waste. The faults built in to his synapses and controllers annoyed him greatly.
"So why have all these things- Why collect all this loot just to leave it here and basically... Die, for however long until you deem a life sentence has been served? I mean... I know you. Or at least, what part of you you allowed me to see, and I can't picture you happily remaining unengaged from the world, playing in your own virtual world while your surrogate body write it's own autobiography. I've seen it before- you have a need to touch things, to influence them. If there's a ball on a cliff you would have to knock it off. I just- It doesn't fit with what I know of you." Her arguments are becoming increasingly desperate, like verbal gunshots at the end of a long battle that she knows she's going to lose.
"Hmmmm...you're right." With a convulsive movement, that suggested it had not been well-planned, he launches into a brand new plan. He steps briskly into a massive computer room that may have once been his body.
She follows, craning her neck to take in the spidery mass of wires and monitors. The former sprawled like a multitude of legs, and the latter gleamed uncannily like eyes. "What're you doing?" She asks, tentatively.
"Making a copy of myself. I'll recreate my program to be a bit more satisfied with the thought of prison retirement."
"But... Isn't that just making someone who's completely different? Changing everything?"
Her hands work the bottom of her bloodied shirt into little wrinkles and creases as he putters about the computer room.
"I've had practice. It took a few tries to become sentient. I mean, not everything is done on the first try. Though I do know that the early failed attempts make for good help. Given they're no longer a real classification of myself, I give them free will and let 'em go. The waitress was one. She game out a bit too snarky, though..."
She fits this new information into her knowledge, and it fits snugly. He was probably telling the truth. She gets the sense he was only tapping keys and realigning buttons for show, considering monitors flicked on and off around him seemingly according to his thoughts. She steps forward slightly. "So, there's just... hundreds of androids wandering around? " She ponders this for a moment, before her usual grin breaks though. "Awesome."
He stops urgently typing for a moment to flash her an uncanny grin. "Someone agrees! My investors usually look like they witnessed a horror show after I explain it all..." He presses a few more buttons, then mashes the Enter key with more than his share of dramatic flair. "there, the android's ready." A new model pops out of the wall,it tests its movements a bit. It looks more or less like a female version of the body he's using right now, with knee-length brown hair and slightly darker skin. It cracks it's neck and speaks. "Why did I have this model lying around...? Oh well. Bye Leo, Bye Jane. I'm expecting you both to buy a book." The android goes to the bio chambers, exiting through one of the masses of cords that adorn the walls.
"Jen. " She corrects automatically, with the practiced ease of someone who's used to having their name mispronounced a lot. Hearing the same voice from a different source, the nearly identical android that had popped out of the wall, is uncanny at best. The android is already gone, though. She sighs, stretching slightly. It had been a long, hectic, bullet-filled day. But she was near the end. She didn't want to give up now.
"And I'm supposed to turn him- you- her into the police, then? " She shakes her head. "I must say, I expected convoluted plans, but this one takes the cake. "
"Yes,that is still the plan. I'll recreate myself as a completely new villain to the world as the new dominance of the international crime flow." He dusts off his dustless hands, settling them on his hips. He casts a reluctant though i must still inform you that the game is still over"
She crosses her arms. There was an odd pulling sensation in her stomach, one she recognized as dread. "Yeah, I know. The game, or my game, is over." She unsticks from the railing, walking over to where he was, surrounded by the sprawling mass of technology, and sticks out a hand with a sideways grin. "It's been fun playing. "
He stands and shakes it. "It's been a lovely year, one of the most entertaining I've witnessed yet."
She nods, not really wanting to let go, because it meant the end of the breakneck year, the death knell of the detective. It meant the end of the story. She looks across the page to the few sheets still in the reader's right hand, and knows that in the end, she has to move on. She steps forward, giving him a quick hug, and then turns to go. She doesn't want to drag this out any longer.
He holds out a hand, his voice tinged slightly with hurt and confusion. "You're just going to leave? Even after the game's ended, you're still going to fast to think anything through. Stick around and relax. There's no hurry anymore you know."
She pauses, then rubs her forehead with a choked laugh. "Hah, you're right. I'm.. I'm just so used to having to run everywhere. " She smiles shakily. "There's literally nowhere to go.. no one waiting. It's nice. "
She notices he has the unnerving habit of constantly looking in one direction while talking to her "Hey, are you ok? You look..." He takes a while to correctly place the words. "Like you're going to be sick..."
She shrugs, making an effort to not look quite so uncertain. "I'm fine, don't worry. A little bit tired, is all. "
He drums his fingers nervously. "Well... I'll get a room set up. I'll have a passport ready for ya when you're ready to leave,ok?"
She yawns a little, following him across the room. "Okay. But, a passport..." She yawns again, stifling it uselessly. "A passport won't get me into any country, when I've got wanted signs all but shaved into my head."
He waves a hand, brushing the matter aside. "Yeah, I erased all your records from the legal system." He's sitting in a swivel chair, facing one of the monitors, but she can see him cock his head to the left. " It was a bit... too easy to do, actually. Should I be worried about that?"
She looks away, inspecting the lack of fingerprints on the computer keys with great intensity. "No. Probably just some formatting thing."
He makes a noise that obviously means he doesn't believe her. "Maybe." His tone changes, to his usual one of gleeful spite. "So,since it's obvious you're going to get bored..." He kicks his legs, spinning the chair around to face her, fingers elegantly steepled in front of him. He leans forward, smirking slightly. "How would you like to help me rebuild my evil empire?"
She wants to respond seriously, but can't help but snort a laugh. The dramatic chair spin, the mock-serious tone, the sheer shock of it, all makes her dissolve into helpless giggles.
"I'll just wait until you're done giggling over there." He's pretending to be irritated, but can't help cracking a smile.
She waves a hand in the air, trying to stop. After a few unsuccessful attempts, she finally straightens up. "You do realize I'm the one who's supposed to catch the criminals, right?" Without giving him a chance to respond, she cuts him off, grinning. "Of course I would. "
"Lovely. "