** Date: 07.06.1029 PNT // Friday **

** Time: 15:47 // 3:47 PM **

** Location: Ecosystem Mika // Habitat Melissa // District 7 // Sector 4 // Alluria Street 6 **

** Alluria Hotel // 3. Floor // Room 301 **

A naked man tied to a chair. Fingernails and toenails ripped out. His genitals were cut off, and there was a deep carving in his chest. “Scum.” Below him a pool of blood, splitting into multiple rivers, following through an archipelago of photographs. Detective Kelly, a woman in her forties, took a knee to take a better look. Each of the images was showing either the man together with the tied-up and tortured young woman or screenshots of chat histories.

“There were no signs of forced entry or a fight. The staff didn’t see anyone strange coming in or out.” Officer Maisie, a young man in a black uniform, appeared next to Kelly. “We are still talking to the hotel guests; some were very cooperative, and some are unreasonably exhausting to work with. They are not even acting suspicious, just…”

“Dumb” Kelly finished the sentence for him and stood back up. “What about the cameras?” While walking towards the hallway.

“State-of-the-art cameras with thermal detectors. Would pick up any heat signature, but apart from the victim, no one entered this room.” Maisie followed her. “We checked for any hardware and software defects, but everything works fine.” He let out a little cough. “Well, mostly. At around lunchtime, the fire detectors went off for some reason. But it turned out to be either a bug…”

“Or someone tampered with it.” Kelly turned back and walked towards the kitchen. “So the killer probably went in during that time. He also seems to have some hacking skills.” She looked around. “Murder weapon?”

“We are still looking.”

“So, as usual, nothing.” Kelly walked into the bathroom, but just like the rest of the room, there was nothing suspicious. She walked back to Maisie, holding his hand open. Maisie promptly gave her a rectangular stick with an ever-changing pattern of colorful bars, squares, circles, and triangles. She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them up again, screens appeared in front of her. Kelly’s eyes moved towards the stick, and a circle appeared around it. The circle bar slowly filled until “Evidence decrypted, saved in locker.”

She closed and opened her eyes again, now free of digital visualizations. Kelly handed the stick back to Maisie, left the hotel room, and made a mental and digital image of the hotel layout on her way outside.

The building was just one big hallway. Heat-detecting cameras, sound scanners, movement detectors, and at least five guards on each of the ten floors. Even the recreational area and the helipad on the rooftop were guarded and secured.

And somehow the killer made it through all of that without a trace.

Back inside her car, she just sat there for a moment before finally lighting a cigarette. She looked into her rearview mirror. Her dark brown eyes were surrounded by even darker rings, contrasting her otherwise pale skin. Her short, dark hair had split ends all over and some gray spots here and there. “You look like shit.” She lightly threw her head on the window of her car. It was not a nice car, and she did not bother to tidy up or clean it for at least a year. The passenger seat floor was flooded with various fast food trash. This is the fifth one in one month. The victims were all powerful people who were not very pleasant. District 5, Nigel Bellient, the CEO of Merriot, a company mainly known for their cereal “Captain CliX”. Xin Ju Hoffstein, ex-mayor of District 3. Loretta Douglas Lacroix, General Chief of Peacekeeping of District 3. District 1, Olaf Goldbach, movie producer. Joseph A. Aundrejski, professional rich guy, District 2.

Aundrejski was the first one to go. After his genitals were mutilated, the murderer threw a bucket of acid on the victim. Very sloppy work. His corpse was found in the sewer entrance close to Malia-Street, Sector 4. His corpse and a 24-year-old woman. Her body was not mutilated, but her throat was slit. And unlike the last murder, the cuts were not as clean. There is a very exclusive club close by. Some people saw a weird man in a hoodie just standing at the entrance of the club.

Olaf Goldbach was next. In his own home. Heliel Hill, a gated neighborhood with reasonable security. None of the neighbors or guards reported anything strange. No one saw anyone coming in and out. And apparently it was difficult to see anyway. For some reason there was a very dense fog. Climate scanners did not pick up on anything. He was not tied up, though; Olaf was sitting in his private cinema, and on his desecrated crotch he was holding his head. The murder weapon was probably some kind of axe. The movie that was running was a comprehensive record of his most abhorrent sins.

The head was the only thing that was left of Loretta. Everything else was turned into minced meat. “Why? Why leave her head?” Kelly asked herself. Her walls were plastered with screenshots of text exchanges. She was bartering, selling, and trading, and the product was a diverse set of people. Goldbach, Bellient, and Aundrejski were all her clients. The killer was smart enough to not reveal other clients yet.

Hoffstein was the weirdest of them all. His corpse was found on a park bench. Apparently he sat there for hours. Eventually they realized he was dead when some kids started to poke him with a stick. He was not murdered there, nor did the murderer bring him there. It seemed like he burned from the inside. They did not connect this one with the rest, but after going through his stuff, it was revealed he also was one of Loretta’s clients. Hoffstein was probably drugged; the question is what substance. The coroner’s report has no signs. But what else could have happened?

“People spontaneously burning from the inside.” She rubbed her eyes. “Can I have a good old bank robbery?”

The first one seemed very improvised and was the only one with witness sightings. From that point on, he learned from his mistakes and made sure to not get caught or leave any evidence. He still likes to present his victims and gets more creative with each one.

The murder weapon is probably going to stay a secret. Kelly was about to put out her cigarette in the ashtray, but like every other compartment or space, it was overflowing. She opened the window and flicked it out. “So who is next?”