NB; I just thought I'd mention that the living quarters are actually outdoor houses. Only outdoor is under a sheet of plastic -kind of like the domes of Andalite ships, but instead pf a park, you have whole neighborhood of houses.
"Dad, this isn't one of your stupid wars, okay? You can't just drop off a few proton-shift-bombs and hope things come back together. They don't. They just fall apart."
"Abby, darling," My father said, "I know I'm not the best of all
fathers, and at times-"
"Not the best of all fathers?" I repeated his words, cutting him off.
"What's that supposed to mean? Is that all you can come up with?
Frankly dad, that isn't good enough and if you think that's going to change
what happened then guess what? It's not."
"Abby," my father sighed, "You aren't even listening to me."
"Why should I listen to you?" I shouted angrily, "You don't even
listen to me!"
I turned away from his eyes and prowled across room. I grabbed hold of a
chair and sat down. Folded my arms against my chest. Heaved a sigh.
"Abby…"
But he knew, he knew I heard, he knew that I heard the far off 'TwerTwer!'
that meant he was needed for something or a superior officer had called him in
or something. I didn't care.
First, he missed my birthday completely. Then this. Not even a full
apology. And to make matters worse, he was communicating through a hologram, we
weren't face-to-face.
I looked down at my nails, "Better go now, god knows what kind of
monster you've put in waiting."
"Abby…"
"Bye dad, I knew this wasn't going to work out." He looked at me
helplessly then terminated the communication. I slumped back in my chair and
groaned into my hands.
I felt like screaming my head off
But I didn't. That would have been a bit childish. I'm an adult, and
my actions had consequences.
"Abigail…how come you're up early?"
I looked up and saw Maxwell's solid frame standing in the doorway, he
yawned loudly. "Heck, I'm up early? How much do we have left for
work?"
"We've got a good hour and a half." I said as cheerfully as I could, "Glad to see we're all up."
"Uhuh. Jan isn't up yet." He pronounced his name carefully, with a
soft 'J'. Yan, was how Jan wanted to be called, Maxwell, as I
noticed, was an extremely meticulous person, and this went far beyond calling
people with correct names.
"Who's going to wake up sleepy head?"
Maxwell and Jan are my roommates. If you're above seventeen, have an
occupation, you're given shared living quarters with co-workers or whatever,
living quarters are like houses and all except that when you stand in the garden
the sky is always stars, plus, there's always the various technical
advancements and improvements you wouldn't find in your average house.
Maxwell is a new roommate, I've been with Jan for over two years now,
we don't work in the same sectors, although it just happens so that Maxwell
does.
Maxwell is a suspicious person, from what I've seen of him anyway,
he's got brown hair and brown eyes that seem to be hiding something. Plus,
I've noticed his lack of eye contact when talking.
Maxwell isn't huge, but he looks a bit silly when he sits down
shoulders hunched and fidgeting. Especially when he has the capacity to rip off
a table leg and bat you to death with it.
Jan came yawning into the living room and plucked down on the sofa.
"What's cooking?"
"That's your responsibility." I pointed out.
"No, I'm doing dinner and I told you to do breakfast." He gave me a
definite look.
"Fine. Fine." I said backing up, "I'll see what I come up with,
but it isn't anything heavy." Jan gave me one of his looks that I ignored,
"How does eggs and bacon sound?"
"No eggs in the fridge," Maxwell said.
"What do you mean 'no eggs in the fridge'?" I asked him
incredulously, "There were at least six in the fridge last night."
"No eggs." Maxwell repeated, not even looking at me, he was putting
on his boots.
"Who ate them then?" I asked.
"Not me." Jan said, "I didn't bake a cake."
"I took them." Maxwell grunted, he yanked at his laces.
"You know the rules." I said, "Whoever cleans out the fridge gets
to stock it up again."
Maxwell sighed, rubbed his eyes, "Fine." He left the living quarters.
"What's up with him?" Jan asked me.
"Search me, who's going to eat a pack of eggs in one go?"
"Him."
I shrugged, "Maybe he has a thing for eggs."
Jan stretched on the sofa and said, "What's up with work? I've
heard you're knee deep in a case or something?"
"Knee deep in blood that is."
"What's up? Is it anything I should worry about?"
"No, this killer's target is young blonde females around the age of
seventeen to twenty four. Plus, the victims have a history or hold a
relationship with some military activity one way or another."
Jan looked up sharply at me, "Jeez, that fits you perfectly."
I shrugged, yes, I was a blonde, and yes, my father worked in the
military (He's a Sasi official –of course rank is unknown as it
always is with the Sasi.)
I didn't tell him how perfectly this fitted me, not only did I match
positively with all of 'the above' but victims shared a few other things in
common.
One; they lived with one parent.
Two; they were in touch with severe violence.
It was all me, basically, my father, goes by the name Mac, had long lost
his wife, my mother, that's a long story which I don't want to talk about.
Anyway, I was in touch with violence because its part of my job, I'm
what you call a profiler, and I help The Department of Human Affairs (DHA- kind
of like a new generation of cops and FBI agents slammed together) to piece
profiles of serial killers.
This serial killer –five victims and goes unchallenged yet- is no
copycat, I've compared with other cases, we've had nothing to match with it.
So naturally, I have to class him on his own.
He. That's the first thing I was extremely sure of, and this particular
'he' was extremely strong. All the victims were killed violently, they were
not beaten to death, they were skinned alive.
Yes, alive. They died of shock; labs results indicate that the victims
were alive when the killer skinned their faces off.
We also found puncture marks on the bodies, I speculated to my co-workers
that he probably did this to drain out the blood, which would explain why the
bodies were always lying in a pool of blood.
In any case, after finishing from my breakfast and after I stashed the
dirty dishes in the dishwasher, I headed to my division and restudied the shots
of all five victims.
"What is it?" Sebastian asked, he was the 'lucky' agent who got
to handle the case, "That's the sixth time you look them over."
"I don't know, Sebastian," I muttered, "You realize all the
victims have blue eyes?"
"I do, it's kind of hard to miss with the face being raw."
"Strange that he only touched the face." I commented, "The rest of
the body is untouched, well, except for the six puncture mark positioned over
the shoulder blades and back."
Sebastian shrugged, "What do you make of it? What's he trying o
say?"
"His message." I started, but stopped, thought about it, "Why would
you take young women, skin them alive, then leave them lying in a pool of their
own blood?"
"Aren't you supposed to answer that question?" Sebastian said,
sipping his early morning coffee. Looking at me expectantly.
"They're related with military activity." I said, "Revenge
maybe?"
"Why do you think its revenge?"
"Because there is this whole appearance-reality thing going on." I
said slowly, "Naturally, if you saw a young blond walking around you'd
automatically think there's nothing dangerous about her."
"Aww, I wouldn't say that about you Abby, we all know how dangerous
you are." Jeremy walked in, he must have heard the last part of my sentence.
I gave Jeremy a 'get serious' look 'we've got work to do',
Jeremy is another agent who had been assign to this case, I've come to see
that he has no serious side to him, even though somehow, somehow, he managed to
get things done-however slowly.
"Nice of you to join us." I paused, looked back at Sebastian. "As I
was saying, their outer appearance is pure, but the relations with violence and
military activity suggest something underlying in the characters, don't you
agree? Maybe the skinning and leaving the bodies in a pool of blood is a way for
the killer to bring out the inner self to the outer appearance. And in doing so,
destroy all the illusions of helplessness or innocence."
"What would you say about the mirrors?" Jeremy asked.
"The mirrors." I sighed, it had baffled me for a while, not only had
the killer skinned the victims, laid them in a pool of their own blood, but he
had placed a mirror on the ceiling so that the victim could 'see' herself.
"Maybe he thinks the victims had committed a crime? Or he is trying to prove
to the girls themselves that they aren't as innocent as they seem, that
someone knows about it. Or maybe he's showing them that without their outer
appearance, their inner is all they'd have, and the inner…" I trailed off
gesturing at the snaps.
"So the rage is towards the victims?" Jeremy asked.
"Yes."
"So who are we trying to find?" Sebastian sighed, "What's our
man's age? Forty?"
"He wouldn't be that old. Middle aged man. Maybe." I said, "I'd
say around the ages if the victims themselves mot likely, but I wouldn't be so
sure.."
"He obviously works out." Jeremy commented, grabbing the shots from
me and looking them over.
"Yes, he is, but I have the impression that even though his rage is
great, he's a bit timid." I said.
"Why?" Sebastian said.
"He's obviously trying to recreate a moment of his life." I sighed,
I didn't know why, but this case was troubling me, Sebastian glanced at me.
Jeremy smirked, then he said, "Perhaps his girlfriend was a blond and
she cheated on him?"
"No." I said firmly, "that's not the case. This entire thing has
something to do with a military event, and it has something to do with looking
into yourself."
"Looking into yourself?" Sebastian questioned.
"The mirrors." Jeremy said. "I don't get it, what military event
is going on? Are they secretly testing humans for something or whatever? Did a
blonde Asi officer do something to this guy?"
Sebastian looked at Jeremy and said, "Get on it, I want you to cross
examine all data on previous assaults concerning Asi officers."
"I'm on it." Jeremy said. He turned to his computer counsel.
"In the mean time, I'm off to talk to lieutenant Becky. I'll be
back in a few minutes." Sebastian took off.
I leaned back and thought more about my case, but my mind kept on
wondering off course as I stared at the photos, but even then my eyes slipped
out of focus.
Why so much rage? What had happened to this guy? And the places the
bodies were found were baffling; dark and damp. We almost missed the mirrors
completely. And the horrible smell; rotten eggs were left lying around.
Sebastian came back, looked at Jeremy expectantly.
"Nothing." He sounded disgusted, "Not a thing."
"Back where we started." Sebastian sat down. "Are you sure you
found nothing."
"Absolutely." He nodded.
"Then it has nothing to do with an Asi officer." Sebastian
sighed, "If we don't stop this the media is going to go crazy, people are
going to wonder why the DHA couldn't stop a serial killer. And it should be
easy knowing we're on a ship."
"A huge, huge ship." Jeremy corrected.
"You're wrong." I said suddenly.
Jeremy and Sebastian said, "What?"
"About the assaults, you couldn't find anything because he was
recreating a moment of his past." I said slowly, "And this guy is old enough
that he must have lived on Planet Earth for a while. His past wouldn't be on
this ship."
They just stared at me.
Five deaths.
That number had aroused something in my mind. And it was a feeling I had,
A feeling that this killer was going to make a sixth kill.
Something about this case reeked. I didn't know why. But it screamed
trouble.
"Where does this take us?"
I snapped out of my thoughts, "I don't know, why don't we give it a
break?"
Sebastian didn't look that happy. But he let me go. I made my way home
slowly.
Five. What did that number mean to me?
Nothing. "You're losing it Abigail," I said to myself aloud.
Someone passing by me jumped back surprised, then frowned and quickly walked
away.
I entered the house and locked the door behind me.
I sat on the sofa and dozed off a bit.
The deaths were not found in intervals of days, but months. The killer
must have found a way to get close to his victims.
I tossed my head as I tried to crack the case by brain storming. My face
touched something warm and soft.
My eyes snapped open in shock. I jerked in surprise, "Maxwell?"
Maxwell took his hand away from the sofa, he wasn't smiling, he just
stared at me for a few moments after moving away, the look sent shivers down my
spine. He sat on an opposite sofa, his face in his hands.
"What are you doing here?" My voice sharp.
"I just got a call." He said.
"And?"
"My father's dead."
I stared for a few moments, blinked, "What?"
"I got a call at work, they told me my dad died."
"That's terrible!" I said.
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry." I didn't know what to say.
"Me too." He took in a deep breath and said, "I don't know what
to do, they told me to break the news to my mom. I don't know what to do."
I sat down beside him, "You should tell her."
"I know, I know." He muttered. He stared at the coffee table. "Say,
would you mind if you…I mean, could you come with me?"
"I'll go with you if you want." I didn't know why I said that.
Maybe it was because I thought he couldn't face his mom, I should have known
better, should have.
"Okay…we'll go tomorrow." He mumbled.
"No, now." I said, I stood up, "It'll be harder if you put it
off."
He gave me a slow smile, "You think?"
"I know."
He took me outside, we headed down a strange path, one I didn't know.
We walked down the street and he took me into a house. It was a dark place.
"Were are the lights?" I asked.
"My mom hates lights." He sighed, "She should be at the
basement."
And we went into the basement. "Damp." I commented. There was no
answer.
"Maxwell?"
A door slammed shut.
A lone light snapped open, but the basement was still gloomy. Maxwell
stepped into view. A cold smile on his face.
"No. You got it all wrong. I'm David."
He took another step forward, a knife in his hand, he cocked his head and
said softly, "You should be honored; you'll be the sixth and last Rachel I
kill."
He knocked me to the ground and I spat at his face I said, "And then what? They'll find out, They'll lock you up for good."
"No, I don't think so. As for what I'm going to do next? Don't worry. I wouldn't be here on this ship, I'd be going to the Andalite home world." He laughed.
"Why?" I gasped. Terror was worming its way into me, my brain screamed one command over and over in my brain; stall him. Stall him!
"Why?" His face twisted in rage, "so I can kill that smug arrogant Andalite five times as well!"
"Five?"
"I killed him once already; it's one down and five to go." He gave me an off hand smile, but then it faded slowly into a look of concentration, he lifted the knife over my face. "Any last words?"
"I could help you." I whispered.
David/Maxwell tossed his head back and laughed. "You think?"
That's when the knife came down and everything went black.
Except for the glinting blade of the knife.
And the twinkle in his eyes.
______________
Oh my gosh. Is that what the Drode meant by David becoming the 'new nightmare'? I guess so. Anyway. I still haven't decided whether or not David actually kills Abby, I guess I better g and think about it.