CHAPTER 3

Our instructor is in the middle of his discussion when my watch vibrated. I stood up and simply shook my arms where my watch is. He smiled and I went out.

NAECSWE

Those are words that are shown on my watch. I used Rail-fence cipher in that. All of our watches should hide the message or notification when we are not in Atom or investigating. It's for no one would know that we are detectives and keep the secrecy of SDO.

I immediately went to the campus forest, SDO put a holographic wall and when you touch the wall, the electric shock will happen, well, mild ground only, it can't kill anyone, it's for outsiders will not dare to touch it again, because we use the forest as our passage to Atom. For the SDO's to pass the wall, we will stick out watches first. 20 meters away from the wall is an elevator that goes down to Atom four elevators are hidden in walls too, there are two elevators in this part of the forest, the other two are on the forest of the other side.

I felt people moving, and when I looked at who, I saw my team and Team Mole which is also running. We immediately took the elevator and went down, when we arrived, me and Captain Sota went to the living room grabbed the flash drive which contains the data about the case. There are two flash drives table, which means there are two separate cases, sometimes, Team Gumshoe and Team Moles, collaborates, if it's a really big case, and only the captain will get the drives. I went to my room and Rize's to change clothes and put on makeup when I finished changing clothes, I grabbed the makeup machine which we call to change', it automatically changes the face and automatically put makeup on the face. After I used the Change, I'm now wearing black eyeliner and black mascara, it put a contact lens on me and darkened the tone of my face, and put a fake mole on my right cheek. We always wear jackets, gloves, pants, medium height socks, and rubber shoes to hide our true skin color because only our faces and our neck will be changed to dark or light. I grabbed my gadgets and went out. I saw my team waiting for me, we, again, run to the Pathea where our van is parked. Each team has its van. At the end of Pathea, is a steep way out 'cause the Atom is underground. When we arrived at the door out of Pathea, I scanned my watch to the door and it opened. Other people see Pathea as a huge garage, that is its cover since it's connected to a house so it will be assumed as a garage.

When we arrived at the crime scene, the police already put up the barricade tape, and they are already guarding it, we showed them our fake NBI license and they let us enter.

Armin took the scanner and scanned the body of the victim for autopsy.

"Cause of death is multiple stabs in the heart." Armin declared. "Time of death, 9:29 a.m."

"Armin, check the CCTV footage." "Hide, ask the neighbors, who are the last person she communicates with this morning." "Rize, come with me," I said to them.

"Copy." They answered synced.

The two of them immediately went out leaving Rize and me. We read the data again and analyze it.

Name: Alona Villaruby

Age: 41

Civil Status: Married

Children: 3

Children Names: Sally Villaruby

Anthony Villaruby

Caren Villaruby

Husband: Marlou Villaruby - deceased

I think I remember a case like this before, I think the elder batch had told it to us. It's like.

*Gasp*

Rize and I looked at each other and grinned.

"I'll check all the past cases of Specialized in Proton," I said.

"And I'll check at Electron." She said.

I opened my laptop and signed in the Atom, I immediately went to the unsolved cases of Specialized. When I opened it, three folders showed up. I easily found the files that we needed because it is like the case of the elder batch of Specialized Detectives and is now graduated.

"I found two," I said.

"I found two, too," Rize said and we both read the reports.

All of the files have the same report, all of the victims are widows. After a while, Hide and Armin are back.

"What are you reading?" Armin asked.

"This is a serial killer case, guys." I declared. "Armin, what have you got?" I asked

"This." He answered. He showed us the CCTV footage in this house. But we can't see anything suspicious...

"There's nothing suspicious about that! !" Rize Said.

"Oh my, you should wear glasses now Rize." Armin teased. And here we go.

"Di you want to wear a black eye?" Rize answered back.

"Stop you two," I said.

"Hehe!, sorry!" They both said.

"Check the time." Hide said so we watched the video again. When we saw what's wrong we just nodded simultaneously. The time has skipped 10 minutes.

"Hide?" I asked.

"According to the neighbors, three people have come and talked to Mrs. Villaruby, and those people are here now for interrogation." Hide answered. "And her children are at school." He added.

We immediately head to the interrogation room. We saw two females and 0ne male.

"What is your relationship with the victim?" Hide asked.

"We are close friends since college." The man answered.

"Your name Mister?" Hide asked. Every interrogation, Hide always interrogates, that's his specialty, his a whodunnit addict after all.

"Samuel"

"Ma'am?"

"Ana." The woman said. Hide stared at the other woman.

"S-sam." The woman answered and she was shaking like a nervous cat.

"What can you say about the victim Mr. Samuel?"

"I pity her, she's a very good person I have a big debt from her, if it wasn't for her, I won't graduate from college." Mr. Samuel said.

"Ma'am Ana?"

"I want to give her justice! If I would know who did this to her, I hope God would forgive me! Because I would kill it whoever it is!" She wailed after saying it. He stared at Ms. Ana again.

"Ah-ah, I love her so much. She the only one who makes friends with him despite being a loner and weird, she always p-protect me from those who bully me. I can't understand why a-a person like her be a victim of a vicious killer. " I'm suspicious of her stammering.

"Why are you stammering Miss. Sam?"

"I-i have a phobia in b-b-b-blood." She answered. Wow, Hide is a mind reader now.

"What do you dislike in a person Mr. Samuel." I stood up after hearing their statement to the victim, I went out from the interrogation room and went to the backyard using the backdoor.

She's a very good person, she doesn't deserve what happened to her. Maybe she's also a loving mother, the love that is unconditional and not obligated to.

I wiped off my tears and was about to get in the house again, but I stopped when a shiny light blinded my left eye. And the light came from the edge of the frame of the door, I looked closer and I saw it was a little camera, it's not easy to notice because it's so small, I just noticed it because of the sun.

I went into the house and immediately head to my team.

"Captain, where have you been?" Rize said.

"You need to see this," I said and lead them to the backyard. When we arrived at the backyard, I showed them the little camera that I saw. "Is it part of the CCTV footage that you showed us earlier?" I asked Armin.

"No, it's not a CCTV, this is a camera from a drone. Only the owner has access to this, but I can hack it." He said. "But I need your help Azumi, in this kind of hacking, there are some passwords that may be in the ciphertext." He added...

"Copy," I answered. "You guys, analyze this case and the others that are related," I said to the two.

We all went back into the house, Rize and Hide went to the table, while Armin and I went to a room in the house because we need a quiet place to work.

Armin started hacking the camera, after some minutes he got in and there appeared a QR code. I scanned the code with a code scanner and this is what appeared.

54 12 45 25 11 31 31 24 51

"Can you do it?" Armin asked.

"I hope," I said and started to decipher. I'm not sure how to decide it cause there's no clue, I might have to try my luck then.

Because there are so many monoalphabetic substitution ciphers, so I'm a bit unsure. But the pattern looked like the Polybius Square. I started to decipher using the Polybius Square, by the time I was done, I can't understand what it said, 8 thought using Polybius is not the right thing, cause this is what is said.

YBURALLIV

I mentally laughed when I accidentally read it backward. I typed the password and we are in, we went to the current footage. I gave it to Armin since he's the expert.

"Here it is." He said and pressed the button.

We saw the back yard from the point of view of the camera, after a while, a person came out, I can say that it's a man, based on the built of his body. He is holding a bloody knife, he stopped to look back at the house, and we saw his eyes, only his eyes because he's wearing a mask and a cap. Fortunately, the camera got his eyes.

"Next time, we will know him when we see him through his eyes," I said and Armin agreed. We went out of the room and went to Hide and Rize.

"Are you two done?" I asked.

"Yes, we now know that his target is only widows. Our hunch for his motive is a family problem because all of the victims died from stab to the heart." Rize answered. "We also discovered that he targets two people in one day in one year and then skip two years and back again. Mrs. Alona is the first today, so it means he's going to the other one, we checked the records of the residents in this village and there's only one left, which is ---"

"Mom." After I said it, I immediately run out of the house and went to our van.

I searched for my mother`s data in their school and I found out that she has a Personal Assistant and she's working with 8 staff. After a while, my team came in.

"Here, we have to spy this High School. Mom has a P.A and 8 staff within the Admin Building. All we have to do is to pretend one of them especially the P.A." I discussed. God! I'm so tensed up right now, this is the first case that involves my mother, I have to protect her.

I showed them the pictures of the P.A and the staff in the admin building.

"You stay close to your mother, I know you want to protect her, so you should be the P.A" Hide said and I smiled at him.

"Thank you," I said.

"I'd be Mr. Vandel." Hide said.

"And I'll be Ms. Narsiso," Rize said.

The three of us wear the earpiece and mouthpiece, I wore a wig that looks like my mother's P.A's hair and the voice changer on my neck, our gadgets are starting to camouflage and we wore the students' uniform in this school.

"Good luck guys," Armin said.

"Thanks. But if you'll shout on my earpiece again like you did last time, your done man." Rize warned Armin.

Armin raised his hands as he surrenders. At least they lighten up the mood.

We wear our fake I.D for the school and the guard let us in. Armin is always left out in the van if we spy because he is the one that monitors us, and his job is to keep us safe and alive. I grabbed the box from my back and went straight to the admin building, and so did Rize and Hide. When the three of us arrived we immediately went to our targets. I knocked to the principal's office fortunately, the P.A was the one who opened the door.

"Yes? May I help you?" The P.A greeted me, I saw mom looking at us through my peripheral vision.

"Ah, Ma'am, someone wants to hand this to you," I whisper to her, pretending like it's a secret. "And, he wants to meet you to ma'am," I added.

"Okay, I'll just ask permission." She said and closed the door. The door opened and she went out. "Please lead the way." She said and I lead the way. "Where is he though?" She asked as we went out of the admin building.

"He's outside ma'am," I answered.

I have led her to the van. Our van is in an unnoticeable place so no one will notice us, when we arrived at the van, I grabbed the 'death tranquilizer' in the box that I am holding and injected it into her. She falls asleep immediately before she could hit the ground, I swiftly grabbed her and put her in the back of the van, when I opened the door, I saw two people who were the targets of Hiding and Rize. I put the P.A beside them. I went inside the van and saw Hide, Rize, and Armin that are waiting for me, I changed my clothes in the dressing room of the van and grabbed the Change to copy the face of mom's P.A, I changed my voice using the voice changer and we're all set. Mr. Vandel( We are practiced to call each other to its code name when investigating and call the name of who we are pretending to be when spying, even in our minds so that we won't slip.) Went out first, because he is the first one who went out from the admin building with his target. Then Ms. Narsiso followed and lastly, me

***.

When we all got in the admin building again, I went straight to Ma'am Celine Grandeurel's office( the principal).

"Oh, Lany, was that?" Tanong ni Ma'am.

"Oh, it's just my neighbor, she delivered my parcel because she will be gone for a few weeks," I answered.

"Is it the watch?" She asked again. I didn't know that Ma'am Celine is observant.

"Oh, yes ma'am, isn't unique?" I answered. Our watches aren't on disguise mode so I have to make it an excuse.

Ma'am Celine just nodded and went back to her work. After a while, the bell rang means it's lunch break already. Ma'am stood up and I followed her just to stop when Armin spoke at my earpiece.

"Pick up her bag first, her P.A is always carrying it when following your mother." He said and I obeyed and went out to the office. I followed Ma'am Celine, I'm at the right side of her back.

While we are walking to the cafeteria, I raised my guard and become more observant. I wanted to ask her about me, but I thought that I should be professional, and, Armin may hear. Some students greeted and we greeted back. Maybe about 20 meters is our distance from the cafeteria, we encountered a man, I accidentally looked at his eyes and I mentally stopped.