The True Story + Aftermath

Tryismo Highway, 5:02 P.M

"Damien." Daniel spoke to Damien, as he drove toward the boot camp.

"Yes?" Damien replied.

"Did you check on our victims?" Daniel inquired.

"I did."

"What did you find?"

"Our doctor is not really a doctor, he scored so low on his test that he only passed by a single point. How he ever got his own room in a medical centre is beyond me."

"How about his technical knowledge?"

"He games, but beyond that, zilch."

"Interesting, so he had no idea how to edit things together."

"That's what I believe."

"So then, how did he get such good footage of him doing an excellent job?"

"That is where victim number two came in. Brian Brick was a Tecknorack. He could speak with computers."

"Ah, of course. Brian was his partner. People with the Technology Communication and Manipulation (Tecknorackcy) ability can make a computer tell any story. Which means the film was an addition to make us think that the videos were produced by the cameras, thus the images were encoded onto the film by the computer."

Damien nodded. "That's what I thought."

"So, the argument they had must have been about the partnership they had." Daniel stated.

"They spoke in our planets local tongue, Leopold can only speak English, so he could not have known what they were discussing, but it would have been apparent that they were arguing."

"Can Mikela speak new Rhombodian?"

"No. She is from earth, she is rank F and a class 1, she has 2 aura points and no magic knowledge."

"So, she's normal."

"As normal as a normal human."

Daniel and Damien arrived back at the boot camp. "I am not sure that Mikela even knew that the doctor had a partner. So, if she is the killer, which is then the reason she took out Brian was not because he and Lee worked together."

Damien looked around but he had no fear, all the other officers were no longer around. Only Edwin and William remained on site, and they already put back on their office suits, they were not as fancy as Daniel's clothes, but they still gave people a good impression of them.

William was holding the ex-commanders neatly folded outfit. Daniel parked his car inside the camp and both he and Damien exited and headed toward Leo's tent. William handed the outfit to Daniel. He, Daniel, and Damien all went into the tent.

Leopold was still sitting on his chair, despite being a prisoner in a basic sense, he was still served spaghetti and meatballs. All the pasta was already gone and there was little sauce on the plate, the commander rolled the last meatball with his fork.

"Hey 221!" Daniel stated.

Leopold suddenly got up and turned around, he was doing his best to hold in his tears of joy. "No way. You mean?" He spoke with a big smile.

"Yes." William announced. "Your rank and your outfit are now being returned. I am so sorry that I accused you. 9797 has given us evidence that completely clears you of suspicion. The tab belonged to a can that the victim owned, so it was not you who left it behind."

"9797… no, Daniel Smith. I thank you." Leopold stated and gave him a salute which he returned. Daniel presented Leopold his uniform. The commander examined it and his tears flowed. "It's like new."

"I did promise that I would look after it." William stated.

"Thank you both. An odd thing for me to say after you accused me 5559. But now that I have been cleared, then I must ask who did it." Leopold replied.

"Before I tell you that, I would like to ask you something."

"What is it?"

"You went to the medical tent to smoke your cigarette, you knew the doctor was in there, yet you smoked it anyway, so I have to wonder why."

"Simple. The tent was sealed."

"Sealed?"

"Yes. The entrance can become inaccessible with that magic green pin on the rope at the entrance. When I was in front of the tent, the pin was already in place, so if anyone were in there the only way, they could have left would be out the rear left flap. There are fences closing off access so if anyone wanted to unlock the tent, they would have to take a big detour."

"So, when Mikela screamed…"

"I opened the door to see what was going on."

"So, if we check for fingerprints on that pin, the only ones we would find belong to you."

"Sounds about right."

"My main suspect currently is Mikela."

"Mikela Bruise?"

Daniel nodded.

"I have heard the terrible things that people have been saying about her. I do not believe them. She was many times the doctor that Lee was." Leopold explained.

"If that is true, then why did you hire him and bring him here?" Daniel asked.

"I saw the videos of his satisfied customers. They looked legit."

Daniel nodded. "How about her recordings?"

Leopold shook his head. "When he got better, her recordings all became fuzzy."

Daniel nodded. "Thank you. I now have enough information to make an arrest."

"I am glad to have helped."

"Damien let us go. We have one more place to go and we will get an appointment with our killer tomorrow."

Damien nodded and they went off.

#

Exam room 3, Baysworld Medical centre, Baysworld, Cascoss, August 3rd, 11:00 A.M

Mikela's last patient left the room and Dan entered the room. He saw the fridge in the corner of the room.

"I see you still have green tea in here." Dan noted.

"Yes, I do. There are still people who ask for it after their appointment finishes." Mikela replied. "But you have never been here, who told you about them?"

"Alice did."

"You know, it is funny, when a doctor becomes a patient."

"I ordered an appointment, but I am not sick."

"That begs the question: why are you here Dr Smith?"

"To confront you for the murder."

"Me?"

"Yes. Would you mind getting me one of those teas?"

Mikela went to the fridge and opened it with a key.

"You have your own key to that fridge." Daniel noted.

"Of course, I do. I was his assistant." Mikela added and passed him the tea.

"Mikela. There is nowhere for you to run you know. Damien brings it in." Daniel stated.

Damien wheeled in a small tv into the room and put a disc into the DVD player.

The disc started playing but all that showed was the time and date stamp and static.

"What is this?" Mikela asked.

"Proof. Proof that someone had tempered with your badge. According to your schedule at the time printed on this screen you were at home, but there is no way that there should be static there unless the scrambler was in your badge."

Mikela sat on the bed. "But how does it prove that I killed them?"

"It proves that that Lee Andrew was taking your credit by removing the evidence of your actions and giving you a motive to kill him."

"I see."

"You also made two big mistakes that point at you and only you. The first one was after you knocked the tray, when you returned to hide the fact that Lee died due to an allergic reaction, you used the scalpel on the floor when there was another more visible scalpel on the tray. If the killer was someone who entered the tent after you knocked the tray, then they would have used the scalpel on the tray not the one on the floor."

"But there is no reason to believe that the scalpel was on the floor to begin with."

"But there is, there was some gunk on the floor of the tent and the scalpel in victim two was covered in the same grime, so, it must have been on the floor."

"What was my second big mistake?"

"The front flap was pinned, so someone with both free movement around the boot camp and part of the medical staff must have been responsible. I checked; only medical professionals would be in the area behind the medical tent. With the process of elimination, it could only have been you."

"You did your research. I may as well tell you everything."

#

Medical Tent, August 2nd, 11:23 A.M

Mikela enters the tent via the rear entrance, she had already closed the tents front door and locked it. She placed a scarlet ashtray from her hotel into the corner of the room. She already ground the name from the ashtray so that nobody could track it back to her. She took out a dragon's tongue cigarette from her pocket.

She cut it with her scissors to make it appear as someone had already smoked half of it. She lit it and placed it in the corner, she taped her nose with transparent tape so she would not be affected with the spiciness of the cigarette.

She woke up the patient and spoke to him before 'accidentally' bumping into the tray and summoning her intended victim. Once Lee told her to leave, she went outside to wait for his demise.

Brian tried to warn the doctor many times, but the doctor was trying to help him, of course he did not know how to, and he was about to call Mikela back in, but he suddenly felt his throat closing. He opened his manifest to look for the EpiPens. He looked where the manifest said they were, but there were not any.

Mikela re-entered the tent to see Lee having a severe allergic reaction, he was on the brink of death. "Are you looking for this?" She waved a lifesaving EpiPen around in the air.

He nodded and gestured for her to give it to him.

Mikela shook her head. "You should have thought about double crossing me before having a severe allergic reaction when I'm your assistant."

The last thing that Mikela saw in Lee's eyes before he died from his allergy is the look of realisation as he finally realised that she was the one who put the cigarette on the ashtray.

Mikela put on her gloves and took the scalpel from the floor and stabbed Lee in the heart, but she did nothing to fix the signs of him having died of an allergic reaction.

She got up to see that Brian was still awake.

"Shouldn't you be sedated?" She asked.

"I will tell them everything." Brian stated with as much strength as he could. She then stabbed him in the heart to keep him quiet. She then put out the cigarette and waited for the smoke to dissipate. Then she gave a scream, and you know the rest.

#

Examination room 3, Baysworld Medical centre, Baysworld, Cascoss, 11:07 A.M

"The only time I could kill him was if there was a patient with him." Mikela elaborated. "That way he would be too distracted with getting them sedated to notice the flavour of the cigarette. If he was sedated, then I would not have had to kill Brian."

"So, I take it that you weren't aware that Brian Brick was a Tecknorack and that he was the one that created those faux videos that painted you in a bad light and Lee in a good light." Daniel replied.

"No. Maybe if I did then there would only be one dead body in that tent. Brian's."

"Why do it?"

"Do you know what my life was like before I came to this planet? Everyone always took credit for my actions, especially men. When I came here and joined FORMAL, I finally felt free. No longer did anyone take anything away from me. I never expected to ever visit that passed and when Lee and Brian took me back to those times my anger boiled over and I killed them both, but as you said, if I knew Brian was the one who made those videos I would have killed him and then Lee would not have been able to keep his malpractice hidden from System and I could finally be recognised again."

Daniel placed her under arrest and read her rights to her.

Page Break

Aftermath

Mikela was charged with the premeditated murder of Lee Andrew and the murder of Brian Brick. James Goldan sentenced her to 65 years in Everleason prison.