Episode Transcript
Reyne: This is the log of Detective Derek Reyne, Homicide Department, 8th Precinct, Etherax. The date is September 16th, 2245. I did not expect to be making another log so soon, but circumstances have advanced rather dramatically. Following the end of my previous recording I retired to my bedroom where I…indulged in some Psier. While I’ll admit the allure of the drug has weakened as of late, there is still something nice about getting to just…not be here. Upon waking up in the morning, I was greeted to a communication, though this time it was not from the police. It was from Risk, the Grey Hand I had met with about the murder of Debrah Jane. It seems an associate of his had been murdered in a strikingly similar way to the murder of Ms. Jane. For my own sake, I decided to record the conversation I had with Risk at the scene of the crime. I have spliced it with this recording.
Reyne: Risk? I take it this is the associate you were talking about?
Risk: Ah, there you are. Yeah, this is him. We found him about an hour ago, just like this. Ain’t nobody touched anything.
Reyne: Who was he? Was he a Grey Hand? Crimson? Something else?
Risk: More of an independent really. Went by the name Jet-Fire. These fuckin names. Dealt some low-level junk to the rank and file, Ice, blow, smack, that kinda shit. Nothing too fancy, but it made him some money. Bit of a scumbag, so he fit right in.
Reyne: Type of person who’d have enemies?
Risk: Oh definitely, ain’t nobody crying over his grave or anything like that. But killing him here meant getting our attention, and no one fuckin wants that. This guy? Definitely not fuckin worth it.
Reyne: I see…there wouldn’t be people angry about relatives he was selling to or anything, the old “you ruined my lover/sibling/mother’s life” shtick?
Risk: The fuck kinda murder mystery bullshit you been reading? No, nobody goes for that kinda shit here. He sold to fucking gangsters, and no one gives a flying fuck if a gangster goes glassy eyed
Reyne: Got it. And no one saw anything weird or suspicious in the area, beyond the ordinary that is? Nobody they weren’t used to seeing, anything like that?
Risk: Look, when you’re around here, you keep your head down unless you’re trying to start some shit, and no one I talked to was around when he died. People are starting to get skittish though. Twice now people gettin whacked when they ain’t supposed to. First Deb, now this piece of shit.
Reyne: Tell me about it. Has anyone checked his body yet? Does he have anything valuable still on him or did the guy rob him too?
Risk: I took a look before you got here. Had some stash on him, couple hundred creds, fake ID card. Nothing massive, but it didn’t look like anyone had rolled him before I got here.
Reyne: None of your guys would’ve tried to take something for themselves when they found the body?
Risk: Normally? That’s they’re fuckin job. But dude shows up dead in the same way Deb was not two days later? They knew I was personally interested and they weren’t gonna fuck it up.
Reyne: Fair play. So that’s three dead now, all in the same style, and no robbery afterwards.
Risk: Three? Who’s the third?
Reyne: Some corporate goon, died maybe a week ago now, some ways away, not too far. Probably on his way home from work when he got caught out. His case is what brought me to Deb.
Risk: Case eh…you still sayin you aren’t a cop?
Reyne: I said the police aren’t involved and they’re not.
Risk: That doesn’t fucking answer my question
Reyne: Look fuckhead, I’m here on my own cuz I, for some fucking reason, have decided to care that these people are dying out of nowhere. Do I work for the police? Maybe, but that’s not what I’m doing right now.
Risk: …Alright, I see you. But I’m watching you Cloud. Don’t try and fuck me over.
Reyne: Wouldn’t dream of it, Risk. Now let me take a look in the area. Maybe the killer left something behind.
Reyne: They didn’t leave anything. Just bloodstains and a dead drug dealer. We did find a little more on Jet-Fire, had a secret pocket in his jacket with some cards and names, clients if I had to guess. Some Securitech guys, a Smith, a Bradley, few others, and some very…intriguing gangster names. Honestly, I didn't know you could combine words like that. Risk said he’d take a look at them, but who knows if the names are still good or how old they are. But, from this, I can at least start to establish a couple patterns. For one, we’re still in the same general 8th precinct area. Whoever is doing this probably lives around here, or at least frequents the area. For two, the kills seem to generally happen later at night, at a time when someone might be walking home from a job or just taking an evening stroll. For three, none of these have been statement kills. The only one of any significance to a large group of people is, seemingly anyway, Debrah Jane. That Jet-Fire died too could mean some kind of prejudice against gangs and their ilk, but it feels like it’s more likely a case of geographical ease. Meanwhile, Terik was a homebody with no connections and a shitty job at Raylir. These are not important people to put it simply.
More importantly, I’m starting to put together a motive. Or…ok well I’m actually doing the opposite of that. Because as of right now, there is no clear motive to these killings. They’re not money driven because they’re not robbing people, they aren’t clearly related to a corporate or gang directive, and they aren’t driven by some obvious connection between these three victims. Instead, what we’re likely looking at here is an unknown personal motive, whether that’s sexual satisfaction, pleasure in the kill, revenge, or some type of delusion is unclear. I believe we can rule out sexual satisfaction due to the lack of any foreign biological matter around the bodies, as well as the fact that the bodies do not appear to have lost any clothing after being killed.
Admittedly such a motive makes it infinitely more difficult to actually establish suspects. Nobody has been seen in the areas, and tracking data reveals nothing in particular either, not even in the Jet-Fire case. Really hoping the info guys at the department don’t look too deeply into why I was requesting that information. It’s one thing to be on a gangsters payroll, but to be openly helping them and seeking their assistance with a case that I wasn’t even assigned…I mean I don’t think it would get me fired but it doesn’t look great for me. I’ve already noticed that they’ve started looking at me weird when I go in the office. Guess they’re not used to seeing me look awake and alert. To be fair, neither am I.
It’s odd, really. When the first case came in, I kinda figured it would be a one off. Just a little thing that looked weird but ultimately meant nothing in the grand scheme of things, just another cog in the machine that is Etharax. Those things happen all the time, little idiosyncrasies and strange moments that make you wonder if there is something beyond the system that you’ve been living in for years. I remember one time there was this political figure who actually seemed like they gave a damn about the neighborhood they were representing. They were on the street, making sure people had food and got home safe, visiting families when their relatives were killed. Seemed like we had finally stumbled upon a good person, someone who could do something. She turned up with half her head missing and a Cydinar insignia burned into her back after she dared to mention that they were corrupting the water supply to a whole slew of apartment buildings.
Later we had a vigilante, like one of those guys in the old comics. He’d steal out into the night, save people from corporate assassins and gang assaults. Of course, he couldn’t save everyone, but he became this symbol of hope, that people could fight back. Think he went by the name “The Crimson Crow.” Drove the police crazy, trying to find this guy who was allegedly doing the job they were supposed to do. Except it didn’t actually matter in the end. Turns out the Crow was just some bored corporate exec who wanted a bit of fun. When he “saved” people he had actually just bought out their attackers and pretended to beat them up. He revealed that when he got tired of the act and went back to full-time war crime manufacturing.
Essentially, it’s always been that anyone who acts up, who tries to stand out and change things, gets brutally shut down. There is no grand movement for change, because everyone is too concerned with just surviving until the next day, or getting their next fix. I’d say eventually something has to crack, but we’ve been building this up for a long while, centuries even. How are you supposed to go against a system like that? How do you get people to give a shit?
I guess in my case you kill them in a way you haven’t seen before. Honestly if this killer was smart they would’ve brutalized the bodies in some way, made it look like there was some real passion or purpose in there. I never would’ve given a damn if I’d found Terrik with his face ripped off and his heart carved out, that’s normal around here. But instead they decided to stand out. To do something just a little different from everyone else, and now I’m here tracking them down to stop them. Though I guess in this case they’re not standing out to help people, they’re just murdering them. So y’know. It’s a little bit different.
It’s kinda funny isn’t it though, that the police don’t care at all. I mean, I didn’t expect them to, but given that their main purpose is to establish conformity, you’d think finding something that broke so cleanly from the mold would make them worry. But I guess when it’s just street level randos, they don’t really care. You can’t truly break the mold from street level, in their eyes at least. A death is a death is a death is a death, and who really cares how you ended up dead? Even Deb’s family were surprisingly blase about the whole thing. They were sad obviously, but they didn’t seem too interested in finding the killer. Her mom, Delilah, seemed appreciative of the notion, but beyond that wasn’t worried about vengeance or justice or anything. To be honest, I don’t know that anyone cares much for justice anymore. Not like anyone’s finding it anywhere.
Jeez, look at me prattling on like some kind of philosopher or something. You must be sick of me William, ranting and raving about how fucked up our society is, even as all I do is sit back and drug myself into oblivion to avoid it. But y’know…I never really said any of these things before. I knew them. I knew that the world was unjust and that nothing seemed to matter in the slightest and that I’d probably live and die without having the barest influence on anything. And now here I am, doing these logs on the suggestion of a shrink, and suddenly I’m spilling my heart out. Guess they have some idea of what they’re doing. Fuckin doctors.
Of course, none of this philosophizing really means anything. I’m just some junkie detective, the fuck am I gonna do to completely change the social order and rewrite the world into something fair. I can barely track a serial killer for the love of God, even if they are pretty good at covering their tracks. Of course, I don’t even know what I’ll do with them when or if I find them. Be a little weird just turning in a murderer to the police that I wasn’t even supposed to be tracking. Heh, maybe I’ll give them to Risk. That would certainly deal with it.
I will say, Risk is…surprisingly helpful. I didn’t get everything in that recording, but he does really seem to want to catch this killer. His connection with Debrah is definitely a bit more serious than he let on. Of course, he knows I’m a cop now. My undercover skills are pretty out of practice. But at least, he didn’t kill me outright. I mean, I doubt I’m the first cop he’s worked with, but I might be the only one who wasn’t just after something material. The rest are always just looking for money or dope, maybe a bit of status, but here I was, just trying to figure out who killed someone that he cared about.
He was pretty good at casing the scene too, I gotta say. Even though we didn’t find any evidence he knew every little spot in the area where something could be hidden, and his boys had kept it pretty much undisturbed as near as I could tell. They clearly respect him. Or fear him. I imagine it’s a bit of the same really. I never did ask exactly how high up he was in the Grey Hands…maybe I ought to look through our records and see if his name shows up anywhere…hopefully they mark him as Risk and not whatever the fuck his real name is. Imagine it’s something like Clarence. I’d go by something else too if that was my name on the street.
Jeez, this has been a rambling one hasn’t it William? I barely even talked about the actual case. Ok, let me run it down before I go and get dinner so I can actually remember. We’re on our third murder, this one a drug dealer by the name of Jet-Fire, who was killed a couple blocks away from where Debrah Jane was killed. The method of murder was the same, and there was little to no evidence left around nor signs of a struggle. Honestly, not unlikely Jet-Fire was high when he was killed, but I don’t have a way to test his blood without some people asking a lot of weird questions. The killer is almost certainly located within the 8th precinct, but beyond that they’re hard to nail down, both motive-wise and identity wise. They can hide their ID card from the standard location scans we have access to, and their killings typically happen later at night. Well…it’s not much but it’s something. Maybe I’ll try and find out if anyone has more advanced scans…maybe Ocularis has something, haven’t talked with them in a while…anyways Imma go eat dinner now. I’ll be back when I have more on the case William. Let me know if you wanna chat in the meantime.
