August 31

Interpol Headquarters

4:05 PM

Lily Shield

I gasped upon realizing who it was we were standing before. "Hi, O!" I said excitedly. "I didn't expect to be meeting you again under these circumstances."

O rubbed her eyes a second time before seeming to realize who I was. "Hi..." she repeated mindlessly, yawning to herself. "You're here about the murder case, aren't you? Come on in, I guess... I think you want to know about what I heard and saw at the time of the crime... That's what everybody wants today..."

"You seem a bit less chipper than before," I frowned. I already knew why, but I wanted to make a little bit of casual conversation before getting down to business. I was getting the feeling that she needed that with how droopy she was appearing.

"I'm so tired... Everybody here keeps asking me what I saw at the time of the murder... Can't they just write it down or record it or something?" O asked. She let out a heavy sigh and shook her head. "At least it's somebody new this time..."

"We should probably introduce ourselves," said Yuri. "I'm Yuri Rinko. This is Deirdre Brigit, and I'm assuming you already know Lily Shield. We're the defense team on this murder case. We do need to ask you a few questions, but we're going to work as hard as we can to make this as painless as possible, okay?"

O nodded slowly. "Okay, sure... Let's go on and get this over with... I hate talking to people about this stuff... It's just saying the same thing over and over again... Don't they ever get sick of hearing it again and again? I know that I do, and I'm the one telling the story..." she grumbled. O flopped down in her seat behind her desk and shut her eyes. "Go on and start asking questions. I'll answer them if I can."

"Okay," I smiled, hoping my optimism would be enough to cheer her up at least a little bit. I highly doubted that would be the case, but I could hope, couldn't I? "What were you doing before the crime took place?"

"I was in my office here," O answered. "Y's office is just down the hall, to give a bit of perspective on where I was compared to the crime scene... It's about a thirty second or so walk from here to there, give or take a little bit... Does that help you at all?"

I nodded to myself. I reached for a pen and looked up at her. "May I?" I asked.

O opened her eyes and looked at my fingers. She stared at them for a moment before nodding. I picked it up, clicked it open, and began marking the thirty second walk detail down on the paper map. I let it clink back into the cup once again after I was done. "Go on," I told her once I realized her eyes were closed. Man, she really was tired...

"I was chilling out in here doing some research on my own about the Oracle case when I heard a crashing sound from a few doors down. I heard a door slam a few seconds after that, but I didn't think anything of it for a moment or two, but I decided to snoop when I remembered the crash. I don't interact much with the other people in this hallway unless I have to, so I didn't want to snoop anywhere I wasn't supposed to. Everybody always told me that was going to get me into trouble, so I left them be," O told us. She sighed and shook her head. "The crash was enough to get me moving, so I got out of my seat and decided to head for wherever the sound had come from."

"How did you figure out which room it was from?" I asked next.

"I was with a few others, as a matter of fact. Well, I say a few, but I really mean one other. It was N. Both of us had overheard the sound and wanted to know what it was about. We met up by coincidence while going to search for the sound. He said it was probably coming from Y's office, so we tried to get in, but the door was jammed. He didn't know what was blocking it, but it was certainly something strong."

"Were you able to get in?" Yuri questioned.

O shook her head. "No, we weren't. The power went off while we were trying to ram on the door and call out for Y. She wasn't answering. We didn't get the chance go into the room until after the power came back on because of how the power outages work here."

"Do they not work like regular power outages?" Deirdre inquired.

"Not really. There's a backup generator here to keep complete outages from taking place. For some reason, it was turned off. When the power is cut completely, then all of the doors are instantly covered by a layer of metal. It normally hangs out in the walls, but when the power is cut, all the doors slam shut. I don't know how it would do that if the power is off, but Interpol has fancy enough technology to pull it off," O continued. "The metal kept us from being able to ram on the door further, so we decided to back off and leave it alone for the time being. N suggested we go and investigate the room where the power is."

"Is that on this floor as well?" Yuri asked, peeking over to look at the map in my hands.

O nodded. "It's the center room of the floor. All the other rooms are part of a hallway that wraps around it, though it does connect to the outside of the building on one side," she explained. "Of course, we weren't able to get inside of the power room because of the outage... There was metal over that door too, so we had to wait outside."

"How long were you waiting out there for the door to open?" I asked with a frown.

"I'd say about fifteen minutes. I don't know how anybody would have been able to escape though. Whoever turned off the power would have been stuck inside since the doors shut nearly right away. Unless they were able to get out from a window, it would have been impossible, and even so, this is up quite a few floors. It would have to be very premeditated in order for them to get in and out easily," O continued. "I can't tell you for sure who could have done that though. It would have taken a lot of knowledge of the building and quite a bit of authority to get others to help them in that way. I can't exactly say much more on the matter since it's not really something I know much about... I've told you about all that I know..."

"It sounds as if this murder is quickly becoming much more complicated than we could have expected," I sighed with a shake of my head. "It will take a lot of deductive reasoning to figure out the case at this rate..."

"If you ask me, this is quickly turning into one of the most difficult cases we have ever gotten down at the agency, which is saying quite a bit," Yuri sighed. "Anyways, continue telling us about the power outage. Any information will be great to hear about. We're going to hear about it no matter what anyways, so it might as well be on our own terms."

"Well... When we finally could get inside of the power room after the outage had ended, we saw a few suspicious things inside," frowned O. "Sitting right on the table was M's identification card. Most rooms that are important like the power room require a key card to get inside. Only certain people can get inside of them to keep anything really bad from taking place. It's a security measure."

"And because his key card was in there, it meant that he was in there on the day of the crime," Deirdre frowned. "I don't think I quite understand one thing though... Where was he at the time?"

"Don't know. That's one of the reasons that he was arrested. N pointed out the ID card sitting on the desk in there and sent me off to call the police. Because of the power outage, we didn't have any good service in the area. Interpol Headquarters are intentionally hidden away from most of the world so that people don't happen to stumble upon them. It's far from getting good service without the company network online, so we couldn't really call for help while the outage was going on," O continued. "After the police arrived, they asked everybody what they saw. I told them exactly what I'm telling you now. They arrested M afterwards."

"N mentioned while we were talking to him and M that they were separated during the outage. N was clearly with you, but do you have any ideas as to where M could have gotten off to?" Yuri questioned.

"Don't hold me to my word on this since I don't know for sure, but I heard from the police that he was hiding in another part of the power room, a part that isn't visible from the doorway. The key card was on the table, but M was supposedly in another section of the room. He and N talked together while I was off talking to the police. I don't know what they were chatting about, but it seemed important. N got all quiet and didn't say anything loud enough for me to hear, even if I was just outside," O continued.

"How did you not see them together when they were leaving the room?" I asked.

"The police told me to go outside the building to meet them when they arrived. I followed those directions and thus had to leave them behind for a few minutes. N and M came out a few minutes after I did, just as panicked as I was. We told M about what we had been doing, but he didn't get the chance to tell me his side of the story before the police arrived to question us about the murder," O frowned. "All of this is so stressful..."

"We'd be happy to talk to you about anything else relating to the case if you're feeling overwhelmed," I told her. "You don't have to face demons like this all on your own. We can't have you enduring a breakdown in the middle of court. That would be far from good."

O nodded. "I agree. It would only cause issues for everyone, both me and other people. I'll try and keep calm, but if I need anything, then I'll come to you for it right away. I hope it doesn't end up as an issue though..." she whispered with a frown. She shook it off and then looked back up at me. "Anyways, I'm a bit worried about all of this, in case you didn't already know that much."

Deirdre raised her hand to get O's attention. "I remember hearing earlier that somebody was selling important information from inside Interpol. What do you know about that?" she questioned.

"So you've heard about that fiasco... It's all to do with Oracle. Things have not been going very well lately around here. A few of our information agents working under the technology branch were revealed by Oracle to be selling information to others. We've managed to root out quite a few as of now. M wanted the investigation into Oracle to come to a stop until we had gotten rid of all of them. Y kept on looking into it, but she was being pretty careful and did it on the down low," O told us. "About ten agents were revealed to be selling the information. We're going through some intense investigation to make sure that we've gotten everybody."

"Didn't the previous head of Interpol end up victim to Oracle's exposure as well?" Yuri asked. "That's what we heard earlier at least."

"Yeah. He was involved in some corrupt dealings and was immediately removed from his position to be arrested. The company was in chaos for a few months until M took up that place in his stead. He's been able to provide us some stability, but things have still been far from optimal. The exposure of our information agents has caused quite a few problems, but we've somehow been managing. Everything is supposed to stay strictly between agents who are assigned to specific projects, like how Oracle information is meant to stay between me and Y. Of course, things weren't exactly going like that..." O's voice trailed off as she stared down at the ground with a frown.

"Did something happen between you two?" I asked with a frown. "It sounds like something has been going wrong in recent days. Come to think of it, M and N mentioned something similar. She said Y was acting a bit strangely these past few weeks."

"I can't say why, but she stopped talking to me about two weeks ago. We were still assigned to the Oracle case, so I didn't know why she was getting so distant. I asked M if something had happened, but he didn't claim to know anything on the matter. It was all rather strange, but I have no idea what's going on. She practically refused to talk to me. Of course, we were working on figuring out if any other spies were within the building, so we had more important things to do, but it was still weird," O told us. She shook her head. "I wish I knew what was up with her, but nobody seems to have a clue."

"I figured that you two just had a falling out, but it sounds like nothing happened to make you two fight. If you really didn't know anything, it makes the victim's behavior even weirder. Do you think she figured something out that could cause her to close herself off like this?" Yuri questioned.

O shook her head once again. "I wish I could tell you. Y was always rather open with her emotions, but with what's been going on recently, she's changed. She's so much quieter than she was before, like she's suddenly afraid of everybody. I don't know what could have scared her that much to change her personality so drastically. Nobody else seemed to get it either. People would come to me from time to time and ask if she was okay. It wasn't like I knew or anything, and if I did, we wouldn't be in this situation... I can't help but wonder if that weird behavior had something to do with her murder."

"Would somebody try to kill her over anything she could have found out?" I wondered. "I have no idea why anybody would kill a nice girl like her... Plus, from what we've seen so far, it was premeditated pretty far in advance. What kind of person would try and do something so cruel?"

"I don't know. That's what you're here to figure out though," O said with a faint smile. It was clear how tired she really was when she said that. She rubbed at her eyes a few seconds later. "Do you think that I could go back into my quiet time? I was planning on catching a nap. It's hard to get sleep when there are officers hounding you at every step."

"Go right ahead," Yuri smiled. "If we need anything, we'll gladly come back and ask. If you need us, just come on and find us. There's no reason this can't have mutual benefits in this case."

O shot her a ghost of a grin before watching us walk away. We closed the door afterwards. I saw her settle down behind her desk and close her eyes just before the door shut. I couldn't help but feel a little bit bad for her. It must have sucked to be practically trapped at work like that.

"Maybe we should head over to the crime scene. We still need to check out the body and such," Deirdre suggested. The room should be just down the hall, yes? We should probably check the map again just to be sure."

We got the map out once again and began to unfold it. It took us a minute or two to find the room due to the vast number of rooms on the map, but once we had located it, we started walking. Luckily for us, it wasn't too large of a distance, so we'd be there in next to no time.

When we found the room, the door was cracked slightly. I glanced in cautiously before creaking the door open. It was pretty eerie and knowing that there was a body on the other side of the door didn't help at all.

When we finally got inside, there were quite a few police lingering around the room. I didn't see anybody familiar, so I focused on the environment rather than the people inside of it.

The first thing I noticed was that it was messy, but that seemed to be a bit of an understatement. The amount of trash in the room was more than excessive. There were papers scattered all over the floor. There was a corner of the room practically covered in pictures taped to the wall and red string connecting them. The handwriting was nonsensical, none of the letters being at all cohesive. Files were spilled out over the desk, leaving barely any of the wood visible. There was one spot on the desk that was freed from the suffocating files, which was more than a little out of place.

I turned my attention away from the desk to focus on the body. It was sprawled out on top of many discarded papers that were now stained with blood. The victim was bleeding intensely from a head wound on the temple. It had mostly dried out now, but it was still incredibly gruesome.

I noticed a vase was sitting on the ground nearby. It had been shattered into countless pieces, so I only knew it was a vase because I had heard earlier from others that the pile of broken shards had once been something resembling a vase. I knew now why nobody could lift any prints from the thing. It looked like somebody had gathered up the pieces after first breaking it before smashing it maybe two or three times more. I didn't think I had ever seen something so broken, which was saying a lot since I wrecked a few lamps as a child playing outside games inside.

"This crime scene is going to be unique to investigate," I heard Yuri mutter with a shake of her head. She didn't seem anywhere near pleased with how this was turning out, not that I could blame her. The mess was something I wasn't particularly fond of either. There was no way this could have happened during the crime. Nobody had ever mentioned a struggle taking place, and even if there had been a struggle, I doubted it would have destroyed the room like this. I wanted nothing more than to clean the room up, but I knew that wasn't going to be allowed for quite some time. How could anybody let their office get this dirty and chaotic?

"It certainly looks like the victim died to a blow to the head, just like the autopsy said. There aren't any other wounds in sight," I commented. "That's a lot of blood though... I don't quite know what I expected from this scene, but it certainly wasn't something this messy and beaten up..."

"We'll have to endure it. M is counting on us," Deirdre pointed out. I nodded in response and crouched down next to the body. The papers underneath her head were covered in the same large and messy writing found in the corner with all the red string. I assumed it was the victim's, but I didn't know how she could at all read her own writing. I could barely tell when one letter ended and another began, so determining words seemed almost impossible.

"I wonder what all of these papers are about. I can barely read them," Deirdre said next. "I can only tell what a few letters are supposed to be, and I highly doubt that's ever going to be enough to read an entire page."

"I can try and decipher what it is. I have pretty messy writing myself, so I should be able to figure out a little bit," Yuri suggested. "Hand me a paper."

"I don't know if that's a good idea. We could get in trouble for going through papers at the crime scene. Let's sit down and look at the pages while they're still on the ground. I feel like that's going to be a lot better for all of us," I pointed out. "I don't want to get yelled at by the police. They're scary."

"I can't even try to deny that. They're terrifying when they start yelling at you," Yuri agreed. She shook with a sudden onslaught of shivers before sighing. "Let's try to read this... I don't think I'll be able to read the papers with blood on them. The handwriting is kind of faint, so I can't exactly read it through the blood. I don't think I'd be able to read it anyways regarding how hard it's written on the page."

"Do your best. Anything will be helpful. I can't say this will help us prove M's innocence, but we need as much as we can get when it comes to information," Deirdre encouraged, placing one hand on Yuri's shoulder.

The girl responded with a grin before getting down on all fours to look at the papers more closely. She almost looked like a dog trying to sniff for its prey, but in this case, the prey was the information hiding in the scrawled-out handwriting. It was a strange sight in a way, but I didn't question it. This was nowhere near the weirdest thing Yuri had done in my line of sight in the past 24 hours.

I was going to look around the other parts of the room, but I couldn't quite see anything I found particularly interesting. Aside from the papers and the body, I didn't see a single thing I could investigate on my own. I would have to wait for Yuri to finish up before I could continue.

Yuri smiled and got to her feet after she had been staring down for a sufficient amount of time. She stretched her arms up and spoke. "I think that all of these papers have to do with Oracle. I'm pretty sure this stuff has to do with research regarding the spy," she replied. "Nothing seems to indicate who Oracle really is, but I bet that there's something around here somewhere."

"I get the feeling somebody would have brought that up if they knew who Oracle was because of these papers... It seems like a fact far too important to want to leave out," I frowned. "I don't get it. They said that the victim had figured out who Oracle was already. Nobody can find anything indicating who they are though. Doesn't that seem a bit weird to you? I feel like somebody should have at least a sneaking suspicion..."

"M and N said that a stack of files was stolen the day of the crime though. I bet that those files had the critical information that we've been missing out on. If that's the case, it seems we're out of luck," Deirdre frowned. "It's unfortunate, but it can't really be helped."

"I wonder who could have taken it then," I said. "I mean, if the killer did it, then that makes you think that M couldn't have done it. He couldn't have hid anything on the premises without getting into serious trouble. The investigators have been looking around all day. They would have found the files pretty easily."

"That is, unless you factor in the idea of conspirators helping him out. Nobody could travel through rooms on the same floor without being spotted if that floor is several stories above the ground," Deirdre pointed out. "The culprit must have had some outside helpers to allow them to pull this off. I don't know how else they could have executed such a complex plot."

"It sounds like this case is going to be more than a little difficult to solve. I mean, it's not like any of our cases have been walks in the park, but the prosecution can use so much against us. I'm up for a challenge as much as the next guy, but I don't really want that challenge to land our client in jail for a crime he didn't commit," I sighed. "The prosecution could say that there's a solid motive in the possibility of our client being related to Oracle. There could very easily be accomplices to help the killer escape, and if you ask me, there have to be... We haven't found anything yet to poke a hole in their case."

"I'm going to assume that's because we haven't met the prosecution yet. I'm sure that we'll be able to formulate more of a case after talking to them... Come to think of it, I don't think we were ever told who the prosecutor on this case is. Fate has been keeping us from interacting, so we haven't seen them around here either..." Deirdre frowned. "I'm sure that we'll see them in a matter of time, but I feel like it's crucial that we learn more about the case sooner rather than later."

"I bet we can go and ask somebody around here to see if they know," I suggested. "Yuri, do you want to go and find Detective Wattson? She can probably tell us about who the prosecution is. She's been working with them this entire case, if she's been doing her job correctly. The detectives and prosecutors always work together on cases."

Yuri nodded and dashed out of the room, leaving Deirdre and me alone in the room. I crossed my arms and let out a sigh. "I can't help but feel like Oracle is going to be a very important part of this case... We might have to act on our suspicions regarding Mr. Morix sooner rather than later if we want the truth. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me at all if the truth found its way out before we find out the identity of the killer. Whether that's a good or bad thing is up for debate," I told Deirdre.

"Oracle only ever seems to bring trouble to the cases that we take on, but I guess that it can't be helped. We'll have to go through with it anyways," Deirdre frowned. "I'm starting to think that maybe we shouldn't have gotten tied into this... I know that something bad is going to be happening... We can pray the trial doesn't go too far downhill too quickly, but we can't help what happens."

"It'll be okay. We only need to have faith that things will be fine," l assured her, though I was sort of trying to convince myself as well as her. I was trying not to show it for her sake as well as mine, but I was a bit concerned about the biased nature of this trial as well as the involvement of Oracle. As excited as I had been to learn more about them, I didn't want to be thrust into something that was so obviously dangerous like this. Maybe Chrysalis was right in saying that Oracle should be avoided because they're dangerous...

"I bet Yuri will be back soon," Deirdre said. "Well, assuming that she didn't get lost... She seems like the type to easily lose her way in a large place like this... We still have the map, so it isn't like that's going to be doing her any good. We might have to go after her to make sure she doesn't end up in some kind of trouble, though she seems very good at that."

I sighed and shook my head. "We can't take that girl anywhere, can we?" I asked. "I guess it's okay though. She doesn't really need directional skills in court. It's pretty rare something like that comes up in a trial, so maybe that weakness is a fine one to have. It isn't exactly the most ideal thing ever, but it could be worse given her occupation."

However, it seemed as if our worries regarding her were misplaced. A few seconds after we finished talking about her, she slid into the room, a frown knit tightly on her features. She didn't seem to have gotten lost, so I decided to count that as one of the few blessings we had on this case.

"I figured out who the prosecutor is, but you aren't going to like it," frowned Yuri as she approached us. A panicked frown was etched on her face. "It's very far from being in our favor. Since Interpol is so important to the stability of the world, they chose a very important prosecutor to handle the case. Please, promise not to freak out when I tell you, okay?"

I frowned nervously. "Now you have me nervous. Who are we going up against? Whoever it is, it doesn't sound good..." I remarked.

Yuri took a deep breath before speaking once more. "The prosecutor we're going up against... It's Chief Prosecutor Bespoke, one of the best prosecutors this area has ever known."

I sped through writing like 80% of this chapter since I forgot about it. Oops. That's also why there's only one update today. Oops.

I've been babysitting a lot and playing even more Fire Emblem. I beat Eliwood mode of FE7 and completed FE10 back to back, if that's any indication. I may have an issue.

Anyways, I'm going to head on over to AO3 and Wattpad to post other things. I'll see you around.

-Digital