The Stitch-Up
Zapper did some research on the Kaiju Karnage game. It was one of the first fully-VR multiplayer games, where players could become different monsters, even creating their own, and act out different scenarios. Developed by Warp Space games, it was immensely popular for a year and held great gameplay in spite of the clunky graphics associated with the early Matrix. However, fifteen years ago the servers were shut down and the game was taken off the market, never to be re-released. It seemed clear to Alan, Zapper and Miki that the developers wouldn't want to risk a major scandal once their moderators found out someone had actually died playing the game.
It was no wonder that Burton, Rigden and Falconetti were at each other's throats. Each of them blamed the other for Josie's death all those years ago, and if Falconetti was right they all feared some form of retribution for that terrible tragedy. It was also apparent that Rigden must have tried to set up Falconetti as the guilty party at the wedding incident.
Was one of those three really willing to kill all of their old friends believing they should be punished? Or had one of them become so addicted to death that they planned to continue the frightening legacy of that game? Many questions filled Alan's mind as he walked to Catherine's ward in the MediCog with Zapper and Miki. Once there, Zapper jacked into Catherine's mind once again, for he wanted to update her on their progress and find out what she knew about that deadly game.
After an hour, as Zapper pulled himself out of Catherine's mind, Gabriel, who had been monitoring Catherine from the next room, marched up to them triumphantly.
"It's clear!" he shouted.
"What is?" Alan asked dumbly.
"The Reaper's image!" the nurse replied. "It's become clear! Look!"
He held up a printout of a now-clear image from the computers. Alan looked at it, at a face the likes of which he had never seen before. Just as he had seen from the unclear image, the head had a single huge, ruby eye that stretched right around the top of the head. Below it was a sharp metallic beak lined with rows of sharp teeth and with large pincers on either side of it. A single metallic horn protruded from the top of the head curled like a sickle, though Alan thought he could see more horns growing out of the back. The skin was a blue-purple colour, with sharp ridges down the sides of the neck. From the bottom of the screen, Alan could see what looked like the top of a scythe blade.
"What the hell?" Miki breathed. "What is that?"
"It looks to me like a Matrix avatar," Zapper mused, turning to Alan. "You think it might be the same one that Hamilton Watford spoke to?"
"Well..." Alan muttered, his eyes wide. "He did say it looked monstrous..."
"I was going to take a copy of the image to the police station," Gabriel said. "They have teams that can extract an image of the user from any avatar. We've got this guy now!"
With that, Gabriel left the ward excitedly. Zapper, meanwhile, looked rather pale.
"What did Catherine have to say?" Alan asked.
"Lots of things..." Zapper replied. "When I told her about the Kaiju Karnage game, she told me that... well... that Josie Dorset was her mother."
Alan's and Miki's mouths fell open.
"After Josie divorced her husband," the elf continued, "she changed her name back to her maiden name. She was the oldest member of the WebRunners by far, and a very keen gamer."
"Oh God..." Miki gasped. "That must have been terrible for Catherine."
"She was really pissed off that I'd made her remember," Zapper replied. "She also admitted why she hadn't shared any of her case notes with me..." He looked away for a moment, now looking extremely angry. "She was hoping to get the exclusive scoop. She wanted to out-scoop me, and nothing else."
He gave a frustrated sigh, his arms folded. Alan couldn't help feeling sorry for him, knowing that he must be crushed after finding out what his girlfriend was. Miki moved closer, placed a tender hand on his shoulder.
Half an hour later, as they waited patiently for news of the Reaper's arrest, they were interrupted by another surveillance transmission on Zapper's commlink. Again, they were looking into Rigden's office, where the good detective had gained another visitor.
"What the hell are you doing here?!" Rigden shouted. "I told you I'd stop by later!"
"I don't want you at my hospital anymore," said Dr. Tanya Burton in a firm tone, holding up a small data disk. "Here's the disk with the results of LeRoi's last interface with Powell. It's the last time I'm doing this for you, Rigden!"
"That's police evidence!" Rigden snarled. "You'll give it to me for as long as I tell you to!"
"If it's police evidence," Burton rebuked, "why is it you don't want anyone to know about it?"
"Don't question my methods, Tanya!" Rigden growled.
"Like you're not questioning mine?!" Burton retorted. "I've heard you, LeRoi and that changeling partner of his actually think I might be the Reaper!"
"Look," Rigden said, reaching for a cigar, "We both know that one of the original WebRunners is the murderer. That's a pretty short list of suspects, and it's getting shorter!"
"As I recall," Burton spat, "You did more than your share of WebRunning!"
"You have an advantage over me, Tanya," Rigden replied. "You know who did it! I've been cutting you some slack, but I'm running out of time. It's either you or your ex, and I'm gonna nail one of ya, Tanya!"
"Maybe I should tell your Captain," Burton snapped, "about these tapes of LeRoi and his partner you've had me making on the sly. Let him decide which one of us is acting more suspicious! This all cuts both ways, Rigden," she continued with a nasty grin. "There are a few other things I could tell him that he might find real interesting." Rigden now looked visibly shaken; it seemed he knew exactly what she was referring to.
"What did you see in him?!" Rigden said angrily.
"He was fun!" Burton snapped. "Not a brooding psycho like you! Though as it turns out, he was a different sort of psycho. Look..." she sighed, "I made a mistake, marrying Joey, but that doesn't mean I regret leaving you." She folded her arms and looked away from the scowling detective.
"What do I have to do to be free of the two of you?" she muttered. An uncomfortable silence followed, with Rigden giving the doctor a steely gaze.
"Kill us," he finally stated, before the transmission went dead.
"They're tearing themselves apart over this," Alan stated.
"Good," Zapper muttered. "Hopefully they'll take each other out."
***
After another half-hour, as they were resting up at Alan's apartment, another surveillance transmission came through. This time they were looking into Dr. Burton's office at the Medicog, where she had an unwanted visitor in Joey Falconetti.
"No!" Burton shouted. "I won't do it! I won't get involved in something like that, Joey!"
"You already are!" Joey hissed, and he suddenly grabbed Burton around the waist, dragging her to a corner of the room. The doctor screamed in abject terror, until the door suddenly slid open and Detective Rigden marched into the room.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," Rigden snarled. "You're in enough trouble as it is, you little worm!"
"Good to see you, Rigden," Falconetti chuckled, releasing Burton. "What's it been? Fifteen years? Just like the old days, isn't it? Me and Tanya, sharin' a moment, then you barge in, wishing you were in my shoes!" he shouted, suddenly trying to grab Burton again, but the doctor forced him off.
"Knock it off, Joey!" she shouted.
"Yeah," Rigden snarled, "before I knock it off for ya!" He then rounded on Burton. "You must be outta your mind, letting a convicted killer in here, twice over!"
"Twice over?" Joey muttered. Then his eyes widened. "You've set me up again, you fucking psychopath!"
"Joey Falconetti," Rigden growled, "I'm arresting you for the murders of Sam Mendell, Victor Estevez, May Stein, Stephanie Jordan, Jerry McLeod and the attempted murder of Covington Watford. You don't have to say anything..."
"I know you're the Reaper!" Falconetti shrieked. "You're not fuckin' pinnin' it on me!"
"We've got conclusive evidence!" Rigden shouted in triumph. "You're gonna fry for this, Joey!"
"I'll kill you, you fuckbend!" Falconetti shrieked, and suddenly launched himself at the detective. The room suddenly swarmed with armed police, who threw the struggling hacker off Rigden and pinned him to the floor, beating him with batons. Burton looked horrified as she watched from by the wall, glaring accusingly at Rigden. In the confusion the anatomy model containing the bug was knocked off the shelf and fell to the floor, the bug now destroyed.
"Well, I guess that's it," Miki said. "The Reaper's been caught, and it's all over."
"I'm not so sure..." Alan muttered. "We know that Rigden's forged evidence to land Falconetti in trouble before. You think he might be trying again?"
"I wouldn't put it past the man," Zapper muttered. "The 'evidence' must have come from the Reaper image. Mind you..." he said, darkly. "I wouldn't be surprised if it really is Joey. Just look..."
He brought up more files on his commlink. Instantly a holographic projection came out of the screen, showing a 3D model of... Alan didn't know what to call it.
He recognised the head as belonging to the Reaper's avatar, and now he could see the body. The skin was the same colour as the head, with a number of hard ridges jutting out of it. The feet ended in large spikes, with what looked like spiked bands wrapped around the knees. A long tail snaked behind the creature, ending in a two-pronged pincer. Metal spikes grew down the back of the creature, while two large webbed purple fins grew out of the back, stretching from the shoulder blades to the waist. Where the forearms should have been, there were two enormous scythe-like blades attached. Most disturbing were several sharp spikes pointing out of a large slot in the middle of the chest, with the teeth shaped like they had come from a buzzsaw.
"So this is the Reaper..." Alan muttered darkly.
"I found it in a hidden space in Falconetti's node," Zapper explained, "along with that recording. It seems this was Joey's design for a new monster he was planning to use in the Kaiju Karnage game, but he never got to use it. He didn't have time to finish writing a backstory, but his notes say that the creature's name is 'Gigan', and Falconetti says that this is 'Jack the Ripper's true form'."
"That nutball..." Miki muttered.
"Still," Zapper said, "I'd be inclined to agree about Rigden. I say we find out if he's telling the truth this time. Even if it really is Joey, at least we'll know for sure."
***
So it was that, half an hour later, the trio were marching into Rigden's office in the police station. The detective looked up at them as they entered, flashing a wolfish grin.
"Well, if it isn't the Super Journos," he said smarmily. "Come for a quote on my successful cracking of the Reaper case?"
"Hardly," Zapper retorted. "What evidence do you have?"
"Only this," Rigden snarled, handing them a piece of paper. The image was that of Falconetti's face emerging from a wall of computer code, looking gleefully murderous.
"When Gabriel at the MediCog showed me the avatar image," he explained, "I had a group of data angels pull the image of the user behind that monstrous visage. Falconetti's face showed up; case closed."
"Let's just make sure of that," Zapper stated. He raised his commlink and activated the scanner function, sweeping it across the image. He then proceeded to press a series of buttons on his commlink, whereupon it emitted a series of loud beeping noises.
"The nice thing about this software I got when I became a journalist," he said, "is that it lets me scan images and sound for forgeries." In triumph, he brought up the Reaper image on the projector, where a series of highlighters had appeared, with an inscription labelling the whole picture as having a 95% chance of being doctored.
"If this thing's real," Zapper stated, "then I'm Godzilla."
"You're full of shit, LeRoi," Rigden growled. "I had half a dozen angels working on that thing; some of them do work for the Utah Foundation!"
"Oh, stop spouting your shit, Rigden," Zapper rebutted. "Look at this! At least seven instances of image falsification are on here! How did that slip past Utah professionals?!"
"So I bend the rules a little," Rigden shrugged, not looking a bit guilty. "What do you care?!"
"I don't think you bend the rules," Miki chimed in. "I think I heard them snap."
"I'll re-write the damn rules," Rigden spat," if that's what it takes to nail Eddie!"
"Well, if it's another frame job," Alan said, "we'll have to run it in the Herald. You should realise that a front-page story will not only free Eddie, but cost you your bounty and more than likely your badge."
At this, Rigden let out a loud snarl, snatching the fake image and proceeding to tear it up right in Alan's face. He looked like he wanted to kill Alan there and then.
"Alright then," he snarled. "He's out, and it's on your conscience when he strikes again!"
Leaving the office, the trio came across Falconetti outside, looking surly.
"I hate owing people a favour..." he muttered, "but I guess I owe you guys one. So does that clear me?"
"I'm not too sure, Eddie," Zapper stated coolly. "See, this frame job makes Rigden look bad too. I mean, either one of you, or Burton of course, could be the Reaper. So until I know for certain, why don't we all just play it by the book?"
Falconetti didn't say anything. He just nodded at Zapper, and walked off back into the sprawl, as the sun began to set overhead.
***
After that messy affair, the trio decided to head to the MediCog, with Zapper wanting to see if he could patch things up with Catherine. Instead of heading to Catherine's ward, however, Alan headed to Burton's office instead.
"Where are you going?!" Zapper called after him, as he and Miki ran to catch up.
"I still want to clear a few things up with the Doctor," Alan replied. "She's back on the list, and I want to know what the fuck's going on in that lab."
Neither of the others seemed inclined to argue, as they marched into the office to find Dr. Burton already there, going over her medical notes. She looked up irritably at the trio as they entered.
"Not now," she said.
"Yes now," Alan said. "You hear that Rigden stitched up Falconetti, right? Well, you're back on the list now, as far as I'm concerned, since you were there when Josie Dorset died." Ignoring Burton's scandalised look, he went on. "You want to prove you're not the Reaper, don't you? Well, how about clearing up a few matters for me?"
Burton paused for a moment and sighed. She looked up at her notes and looked at Alan with irritation.
"Five minutes," she said. "That's all you've got."
"Thank you," Alan said. "I want to know more about that secret lab of yours."
"I already went over this with your partner," Burton shrugged.
"Not all of it," Alan spat. "Just what the hell were you trying to do? What did you hope to achieve? You'd better be honest with me; I'll find out if you're not."
"How?" Burton retorted.
"I have my ways," Alan responded.
Burton sighed. She reached below her desk and pulled out a large ledger. Placing it on the desk and opening it, she handed Alan an invoice and a series of papers. All of them were marked with the same megacorporation 'Xanatos Enterprises'.
"I went to Xanatos Enterprises for research funding," she said. "They gave me a grant, but it came with a price. My research involved translating images in the brain directly into visual and audio output. I planned to use it for foreign language translations and to give a voice to those who could not speak, but the company wanted me to create a program that would allow them to implant subliminal messages into targeted brains while they were immersed into the Matrix. Then I started thinking, with a few minor adjustments, there were other things the program could do to a human brain; other things that it could make a person do."
"Such as making them blow up?" Alan spat.
"Maybe," Burton sighed. "Since you seem to know about what happened to poor Josie fifteen years ago, let me tell you that none of us were able to figure out how she died. Through my recent research though, I developed a theory that there was a fault with the game's programming; a line of code that was activated somehow and caused the disaster.
"With this research, and also remembering the theories that Joey had spoken of," she continued, "I began to think it was possible to recreate what happened that night, since the modified code I was researching could potentially have similar effects. When I realised this, I vowed to shut down the entire operation as soon as I could without Xanatos Enterprises realising. What really worries me is that I think someone hacked into my research node a few weeks ago, and may have stolen my notes!"
"You think the Reaper did it?" Alan asked.
"I hope not," Burton replied, looking very worried. "If he used my notes to construct his murder weapon, I'm as guilty as he is."
"So how could Catherine have survived?" Alan asked.
"That's a mystery in itself," Burton replied. "If the Reaper was striking long-distance for the first time, then he may have made a mistake. Also, Catherine has abnormally strong psychic defences."
"Yeah, that's true," Zapper replied. "I've seen it with my own eyes."
"So in a psychic sense..." Miki said, "she may have fought the Reaper off before he could kill her." Burton nodded in agreement. Alan thanked the doctor and the trio headed to Catherine's ward.
"Do you really buy that woman's story?" Zapper asked wryly.
"Not completely," Alan said quietly. "She's not off my list, and she has been behaving very strangely. Still, I can't deny that there may be some truth to what she says."
"Probably just the 'she discovered the code' bit," Zapper muttered angrily as they crossed into the ward. "She could be using that code herself."
"Still," Miki responded reasonably, "either Falconetti or Rigden could have stolen her research. All three of them are lunatics in their own ways."
"So we're back to square one," Zapper snarled as he prepared the VR rig attached to Catherine's ICU. "I'm gonna talk with Catherine again; maybe she's remembered something else." With that, he placed the goggles on and was immersed.
Moments later, Gabriel wandered into the room, holding reams of paper. He was looking at it with a quizzical expression, scratching his head.
"You're looking a bit confused," Alan told the troubled nurse. "What's up?"
"I don't know..." Gabriel murmured. "I've been going over your friend's brain scans, and... well... there's something wrong with them."
"What do you mean?" Alan demanded.
"I mean that this is not right," the nurse replied. "We've been monitoring Catherine's brainwave activity every day since she was admitted, and for the most part it's been what you'd expect. But..." he continued, holding up the pages and pages of scans for Alan to get a better look, "there are days when the brainwave activity radically spikes, displaying an intense burst of activity!"
Alan shrugged. "We've been rebuilding her personality," he said. "Shouldn't that increase her brain activity?"
"No!" Gabriel replied indignantly. "Not like this! There's no pattern to the increased activity! Look, you're welcome to check yourself!" He pointed towards what looked like an electronic EEG monitor on the far wall.
"Just punch in the date for any day since Catherine was admitted," he explained. "The screen will display her brain activity for that day. You'll see what I'm talking about! Maybe you can tell me what's going on here!"
Alan nodded, and turned to the display. As he watched the line graphs form, he saw that at present they were virtually flat. He typed in the dates since Catherine had been admitted, and also found out that the monitor could let him check the exact time as well. Catherine had been admitted on the 1st November, and Alan noticed that at certain times, on the 3rd and 7th of November in-particular, Catherine's brain activity did indeed spike sharply, almost shooting off-the-scale. As Alan thought back to what happened on those days and at those times, a horrible realisation suddenly dawned on him.
"Oh shit..." he muttered.
At this point, Zapper pulled himself out of Catherine's mind. He panted and looked across at Alan.
"Alright," Zapper said. "I've talked to Catherine. She's saying that when she wakes up, maybe we can..."
He trailed off as he noticed Alan wasn't responding. Looking at him, he saw that the mutant was as stiff as a board.
"What is it?" Zapper demanded, looking hesitatingly between Alan and Catherine.
Alan turned to look at him with a pale face. "The Reaper..." Alan muttered. "The person we're up against..." He paused for a moment, looking very uncertain. Finally, he stated the nagging thought that was now plaguing his mind.
"I think it's Catherine."