"Torn" is by Natalie Imbruglia. The song was chosen purely for its dancibility. That sounded so much better in my head. Anyway, enjoy!
Chapter VII: Torn
The elderly woman turned toward the upper floor. "Richard! Richard, get down here!"
A few minutes later, a scrawny boy with a flashlight was making Sayen think she would have to be the one doing the protecting if a murderer with two apparent personalities popped out of the woodwork. They made their way to the empty house silently.
"Hello," Richard said into the darkness, reminding her that he was the murderer with two apparent personalities. His beam fell on Elle Greenaway's shadowy silhouette. "Hello!?" he said, this time more loudly.
Out of the blue, agents appeared, yelling. "Freeze!" they cried.
"Richard Slessman, you're under arrest for murder," said Gideon. When Slessman saw Gideon, he smiled, and Henry noticed.
"Emerson said, 'All is a riddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle?'" Henry mentioned in passing.
"Why do you say that?" Sayen asked.
"Because Slessman looks like he's happy to see Gideon in particular. Why?" Henry asked.
Sayen felt her heart sink at the realization that Slessman knew something none of them did, and tried to cover it up with an insult at the nearest person available. "Why, Gibson, you're becoming an actual FBI profiler, aren't you?"
Henry skulked away to next door. "There are no signs of Varda ever having been here," he told Gideon. "We won't be able to hold him long."
"You were right about him losing a relative," said Callia. "His mother died in a fire when he was thirteen."
"He probably started the fire," said Elle. "Fire starting as a child is one of the first signs of being a serial killer."
"So is animal abuse," Sayen piped up.
"And Varda said something about bedwetting," Henry said.
"Elle, you have a background in sex offender cases," said Gideon. "What do you think about this case?"
"The unsub is an anger-excitation rapist," said Elle.
"He probably records or videotapes his crimes," said Sayen.
"Do you ladies mind if Hotch and I interview Slessman first? Richard knows the system and will ask for a lawyer immediately," said Gideon.
Elle and Sayen both gave him a hard look, but seeing no way to get out of it, agreed. Noting their displeasure, Morgan leaned down and whispered, "Next time, show a little leg."
Elle and Sayen both followed Morgan up the stairs. "Excuse me? The only time you're going to see a little leg is when I'm kicking your ass," Sayen said pleasantly.
"Seriously, I want that position open at the BAU. You got any advice?" Elle asked.
"All I can say is this; trust your instincts," said Morgan.
Callia whistled outside and Sayen went dashing down the stairs, tripping more than three times. She came upon the woman towering over Hotch and Gideon in front of the garage.
"Well, we got the Jeep right," Hotch sighed.
"And everything else wrong," Gideon said.
"How so?" Sayen asked.
"The bodies had defensive wounds, Richard doesn't have a mark ion him," said Callia. "We're missing something."
"But he is a killer," Sayen frowned. "I can just feel it."
The four turned their heads toward the sound of Morgan yelling, "DON'T!" upstairs.
"It isn't serious," Emily said, coming out. "He's mad at the police officers. There was a note under the computer that was labeled 'password,' and they put it in. It turned out to be a fake one that made the computer shut down. I could have told them that nobody keeps their password underneath their computer! It's like putting your house key under your rug."
"A lot of people do that," said Gideon, humored.
"Can we go back inside?" Lauren asked, shivering. "It's freezing."
After the team shooed everyone else out of the attic, Andres made Lauren some hot tea and turned on the TV so she could watch his show. In front of the television was something that looked like no board game either of them had ever seen.
"What's that?" asked Lauren, turning her chin at it before she drank.
Sayen looked amazed as she approached it. "It's a game. Varda plays it a lot."
"What kind of game is it?" asked Elle.
"Varda called it 'Wei Qi,' but I've heard Caucasians call it 'Go.' It's considered the most difficult board game ever conceived."
"Chairman Mao required his generals to learn it," Gideon mentioned as Sayen leaned down at the board.
"It also looks like he was playing himself," said Sayen.
"How can you tell?" asked Elle.
Sayen pointed to the board. "Varda played it. This might provide an advantage; 'Go' is can reveal a person's psychological profile. Varda's a conservative point counter, Callia's an aggressor, and I'm a finessor."
"What kind of player is Slessman?" asked Hotch.
Sayen looked at it a little bit longer before looking up to give a sure reply. "Extreme aggressor."
Henry came up. "I've just restarted Slessman's laptop," he said, "but I don't know what the password is."
"Don't worry. I have someone I call during these times," Morgan said. He took out his phone and dialed Garcia.
"You've reached Penelope Garcia in the FBI's Office of Supreme Genius," said a cheery voice. Sayen smiled.
"Hey, it's Morgan. Need you to work me some magic here. I got a program called Deadbolt Defense and a girl with only a couple of hours to live, so what do you know?"
"That you got a problem. Deadbolt's the number one password-crack-resistant software out there. You're gonna have to get inside this guy's head to get the password."
"I thought I was calling the Office of Supreme Genius," said Morgan.
"Well, gorgeous, you've been rerouted to the Office of Too Frigging Bad," was Garcia's snappy reply.
"Thanks anyway," Morgan sighed as he hung up.
"You are a profiler," Sayen said slowly with confusion, giving him an odd look. "You're the profiler, go profile. You've got a whole house to work with," she swept her hand over the room as Gideon came in. "Try to guess the password."
"In six tries?" Morgan gave her a "You're crazy" look.
"Try again. Fail again. Fail better," said Gideon.
"Samuel Beckett," Sayen and Henry said at once. They looked at each other and smiled wearily.
Morgan gave the duo the same look Sayen had given him not one minute ago. "Try not. Do, or do not."
Now Sayen, Henry, and Gideon all looked confused.
"Yoda," Emily said, coming in. Gideon looked at her, still confused, but the three teenagers laughed.
Emily pulled a book off the shelf. "The Journal of Applied Criminal Psychology?" she looked surprised. "Well, you got the criminal background right," she flipped through the pages and a news article fell out. She picked it up and read, "Shrapnel Blast Kills Six." She flipped it over before poking Gideon's arm. "Hey," she pointed to the picture. "Isn't he you?"
Gideon ignored her in favor of snatching both book and article and walking downstairs to Slessman. Morgan cursed.
"What did I do?" Emily looked blank.
"I don't know," Sayen frowned. The girls followed Gideon downstairs.
"You're a fan of Adrian Bale's work?" Gideon slid the book and the article across the table to Slessman and leaned forward.
"No," Slessman leaned forward too. "I'm a fan of yours." He leaned closer. "You know, they never give you the real facts about CPR. That outside of a hospital it's only effective 7% of the time. Your friend had a 93% certainty of dying, but you kept trying, even after you'd broken his ribs, even after his blood was all over your hands."
Gideon refused to break. "Where's Varda Swan."
"I don't know where she is," said Slessman.
Gideon got up and stormed past Hotch and Sayen, both of whom joined him behind the house.
"Is it true, what he said about CPR?" asked Hotch upon joining him. "I mean, I didn't know."
"It's really a 2%-30% chance of CPR working in the hospital," Sayen piped up. "And there's only a 6%-15% chance of CPR working inside the hospital." She grew quiet. "Varda would know. She's a doctor."
"You two want statistics on CPR, ask Gibson," Gideon spat.
"They want to know that you're okay," Emily stepped out. "Lauren pointed out that you're trying very hard to hold it together."
"I'm fine," Gideon lied.
"You can't be two different people…at once," Callia straightened. "That's what's wrong with the profile. The two different behaviors are because there are two different people."
"So Slessman either has disassociative identity disorder or there's a second killer," Emily brightened.
Sayen smiled pleasantly as she answered her phone. As she hung up, however, she was no longer so chipper. "Varda's alive," she said.
"How can you tell?" asked Callia.
"Slessman referred to her in the present tense. He said he had no idea where she is, not where she was," Sayen said quickly.
"You're astute," Gideon observed. "But so am I. What are you hiding?"
All eyes on her again, Sayen sighed. "Remember when I didn't tell Callia where I was when she asked? Well, now is the time to say it. I was called by the Seattle Strangler. And he wants to make a deal."
"No way are you trading yourself for Varda," Hotch said firmly.
"Look, Varda is a genius. You guys'll find me in an hour," Sayen said.
"Why are you so eager to die?" Hotch asked.
Sayen looked confused. "I'm not. I just think-"
"You're not! You can die! And death is the end of it. Boom! Gone! Kaput! And that's it! Everything you'll ever experience, you'll already have experienced," Hotch said agitatedly.
Sayen could feel Morgan's concerned gaze boring a hole into her skull. "Look, you need to calm down, alright?"
"No, you need to calm down. You can't be the sacrificial lamb. You don't even know what it means to be the sacrificial lamb," Callia argued.
"Why are you taking his side?" Sayen whined. Her phone buzzed. Callia and Hotch both lunged for it, the latter pausing halfway.
"Listen, you dirty rotten sonuvabitch, I-" Callia stopped abruptly. "No, I don't want my penis enlarged. Thank you, and don't ever call here again." She hung up and turned to Sayen. "I think we should rethink the hostage switching possibility."
"No," Hotch said, face like stone.
Callia turned to him. "You do realize that, once she sets her mind to it, she'll do whatever it takes to get there."
"I'm right here!" Sayen protested. "When people say, 'Don't talk behind people's backs,' I'm sure they meant to include fronts in there too!"
Hotch emitted a harsh bark of laughter. "You've trained her well," he stormed out of the room. "We're going to switch the hostages. And Slessman will be our middleman."
Next time on Tesseraction:
"Why are you pacing?" Yadid asked Hotch.
"Callia's in the same prison as Slessman. Prisoners tend to be violent. I'm worried she might not come back in one piece."