Friends

188 Daffodil Avenue, 3:01 PM

Dan and Bill entered the Fisherman's Rest pub. They saw nine people. Four of them were fishers, one of them was a female. All four of said fisher people were wearing similar boots. All caked in mud and with the same blue flakes as was found on the scrap of boot that the victim was holding onto. But from what Daniel could see, all the boots were more or less intact. None of them were missing the chunk found at the scene. So, the question was, whose shoes did the piece of boot come from?

One of the five others was West Kiteton, who was described earlier, he was behind the counter. The four others were Frank York, Jeremy Urchin, Liam Doubledaze and David Sword.

Liam, old name being Lamprey, was 175cm tall, he wore a green and yellow jogging suit and there were water bottles strapped to each of his hips. He wore a white t-shirt that was already stained by a pint that he drank prior to Dan showing up. He wore khaki jeans made from flax thread, and they must have made his legs feel cool. He also wore a hat that was strapped onto his head with a thick cord. His hair was black with white bits at the end that looked like shark teeth and his eyes were a light shade of green. His face was a bit out of sorts, he was probably still mourning his brother's loss He was standing by the counter near a bar stool and drinking his second drink.

Frank York was 177cm tall with wild, curly orange hair and bright blue eyes that you could swear were shining as if he or someone else put glitter in his eyes. He wore a tuxedo, but one could see that it was not authentic, the clothes he was wearing couldn't have cost him any more than $34 in RHD. His face was round and he had a lightning bolt temporary tattoo that passed through his right eye. His eyes were brown. His brows and lashes were normal, and he seemed happy to be here. Daniel didn't think he was acting. There was little likelihood that this fellow knew much about the incident that occurred just across the road.

Jeremy Urchin had thick brown hair, he was wearing make-up on both cheeks in the shape of waving flags with black and white and a lightning bolt in the middle. He was obviously cheering on the Tryismo team in the football game happening on the television atop the bar. He had a glass of scotch on the rooks in front of him, it had a black olive and white onion skewered with a miniature Tryismo flag on its rim. Jeremy's shirt looked like a shirt version of the Tryismo flag and his pants were a dark brown colour. His shoes were cheep black shoes with Velcro instead of laces.

David Sword was at a seat at a table near the north wall of the bar. He was wearing a surgical mask, a pair of glasses, a dark shirt with a black windbreaker and long black pants. He had light grey hair, but it wasn't due to age, from his face he must have been less than 30 years of age. There was a stethoscope poking its way out of David's left Brest pocket on said windbreaker. There was definitely an air of mystery about him.

Bill and Dan approached the bar. "Pardon me, sorry." Dan said to Liam. "Are you who I think you are?"

"Who do you think I am?" Liam inquired in his light voice.

"OH COME ON!" Jeremy yelled boisterously at the television in his mid-tone voice. Clearly a great tragedy had fallen on the battlefield of the football field. The team opposing Tryismo had gotten a touchdown. Such a sad day for Tryismo's people the world over.

"Damn, that guy is loud." Bill relayed, cleaning his ears as he said what he said.

"Forgive Jeremy." Frank relayed, his voice was childlike, and with high energy. "When he gets into a game, he really gets into a game."

"Anyway, are you Lamprey Doubledaze?" Dan asked Liam.

"That's no longer my legal name, that was my birth name. How did you know it?" Liam replied with a bit of embarrassment presented on his face.

"I told him your birth name, and in my honest opinion, I think it's a rather cool name." Bill added.

"Yeah, but that doesn't forgive the twelve years I had to endure bullying." Liam added.

"What, did you get sent to an Earth school?" Dan inquired. "Such a thing wouldn't easily fly on Rhombodian."

"You can easily forget that 78% of this planet is currently under the control of FORMAL, only a fraction of that is owned by them. But even within that 78% you can find places that don't follow the strict rules of FORMAL. If only they did in Rysim, where I grew up. Maybe things would be different." Liam explained.

"We're sorry about what happened to you, and we would like to speak to you about your little brother after we speak to West." Dan relayed.

"Me?" West added with shock. "Dan, you seem like a tea guy, and Bill seems the type to want to go to a high end bar for drinks. Why would either of you want to order from me?"

"No, we'd like to discuss something other than alcoholic beverages." Dan explained.

West breathed a sigh of relief. "Ah, thank goodness, for a second there, I thought I was dealing with shape shifters and I would have to prepare for a battle, and let's just say I have no skill whatsoever when it comes to wielding a broken bottle." West chuckled.

"Stay focused little man." Bill retorted with a slight frustration. "Do you have a police conversation room?"

West instantly shut up. "Is it that serious?" He pondered with an uneasy tone. To this Dan perked his right brow. "It is that serious." He relayed. "Hey David!" He shouted over to the man mentioned in a prior paragraph.

The man approached in an almost march. "Yes?" He asked in a dark tone.

"Look after the place while I'm gone." West asked.

"Are you sure this guy is qualified?" Bill stated with his eyes narrowed in suspicion. His tone seemed slightly knowing.

"I am qualified to serve drinks, took 2 years of mixology classes and I'm also the son of Leeroy Sword, the greatest surgeon of Aurime county, and that's not just a rumour, it's true. I've been following in my father's footsteps and I can recognise inebriation from a kilometre away." David explained.

"So, we can trust that you'll uphold the standards set by the Rhombodian Drugs and Alcohol Committee?" Dan inquired.

David gave a bow, and his stethoscope tried to escape during this, but wasn't able to fall out before David finished his bow and pushed it back in, he also fixed his glasses as they too almost slipped off. "I swear that I'll keep this place safe on my grandfather's grave." David promised.

"That's good enough for me." Bill added.

"Are you even licenced to sell alcohol?" Dan inquired.

"Yes, bit not on this premises, but since the AM is allowing it, then it should be fine, right?" David added.

Daniel nodded. "Very well, I'll take your word for it, come on, West, show us the way."

West took them into the storage room and through a blue tinted very foggy glass door. He presented his employee card to the FORMAL scanner on the left side of the door and the door slid so smoothly that you could barely hear the mechanism working its magic.

Police conversation room, 188 Daffodil Avenue, 3:13 PM

Dan and Bill sat on one side of the neon blue table in the middle of the room whilst West tested the amenities around the room to see that they were in working order.

• Air conditioner: working

• Coffee machine and tea kettle: working

• Snack dispenser: slow, but still works well.

• Refrigerator: working

• Microphone: recording perfectly.

• Camera: Images clearer than a clear blue sky and recording.

• Lights: they were turned on, so obviously they worked.

"Well, gentlemen, looks like everything is in order." West announced. "So what is this all about? Why are you singling me out? I had nothing to do with what happened across the road before you ask. I had two fishermen in my bar at the time. Harry Outage and Berry Ingot. You can look them up and ask them."

"We don't doubt that you didn't have direct involvement in that case." Bill retorted. "We are here to speak about something else."

"Why did you check this room? Wouldn't you have done it earlier today?' Daniel wondered loudly.

"You can never be too sure. FORMAL strives for perfection, but perfection isn't forever and you'll never know when that perfection comes to an end until after it has. So I always check the amenities in here at every chance I get." West explained.

Dan nodded in agreement.

"Yo, Dan! Get with the program." Bill retorted with some anger. "We're here to ask about Elliot."

West's face went from 'things are fine' to being sad. "I heard that he passed two weeks ago. I still can't believe the story the police came up with."

"HA HA!" Bill yelled. "You did know more than I first thought." Bill smiled smugly.

"Did you hear that from the FORMAL microphone in Edwin's badge?" West inquired.

"Of course, I know what you, Dan and Edwin spoke about, all of us are listening to one another. So did you know about Elliot's murder?" Bill replied.

"What?!" West yelled in surprise and shock. Dan and Bill both admitted to themselves that this was an excellent act. They were plenty convinced, but there was something that felt off, like he was lying perhaps. "Murder? What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry to inform you of this," Dan added. "But the story that you initially heard was incorrect. From what we have read from a page from Markov's diary, we have been able to confirm that Elliot's death was actually planned, Elliot never wanted to steal anything from the store, it was all orchestrated to look that way so nobody would question if the old man killed the guy due to something other than a valid and legal reason to kill another."

West sighed a sigh of relief. "Thank goodness. I thought that he would never do anything like that. Lamprey himself agreed that his brother wouldn't ever try to rob from the store. So, he and Jeremy investigated it. Never heard the results. Lamprey also said that his brother did consider stealing from that place, but Lamprey talked him out of it, so Elliot basically begged Markov for the job, so I've heard."

Daniel nodded. "That's an interesting story. But Jeremy, Frank and Liam are your friends, how come they never reported on their investigation?" He inquired as Bill turned on his FORMAL watch to find footage produced by the establishment's cameras.

"How am I supposed to know why they never got back to me about anything? All I can tell you is they never did." West reiterated.

"We finished our investigation," A voice stated out of the audio channels of Bill's watch. The voice was very clear and you can tell it belonged to Liam Doubledaze. There was a head-down view of them in the bar 8 days prior to the present day. Liam was wearing a sky-blue t-shirt under his jogging suit and his hat was a baseball cap in the footage. Jeremy was wearing a Hawaiian shirt and long black jeans with a white belt. As for frank, he was nowhere to be found, he wasn't present for this discussion. Of course, West was there, on duty at the bar and the owner was in the left-most stall of the ladies' restroom cleaning up some vomit. David Sword was wearing his doctor coat, no hat and no mask, his glasses were on his face and his stethoscope was around his neck. There was a total of three cameras presenting their footage on Bill's watch's screen.

"What did you guys discover?" West in the footage asked.

"That guy is a monster, he was doing something unforgivable, he was producing fake organ donor cards." Liam stated.

"Should we tell FORMAL?" West inquired.

"Would it even matter if we did? I found the idol and behind it there was a page from Markov's diary, he killed my brother and he admitted that he trained under Joel Joyce and Rodger Rounds. This guy is brutal and could probably just escape, and how long will it be until another Elliot shows up? We must put a stop to this guy." Liam explained.

"Well, count me out of your silly plans, if you plan to do something terrible, then I don't want to know anything about it." West stated with a great amount of annoyance and frustration. He was passionate about what he was saying. Dan noticed David put away the pool cue and slink across the room toward the stairs that led down to the basement which were located under the stairs that led to Robin Phisher's apartment and the 'sleep it off' rooms. "If something does happen, I might have to tell FORMAL about it."

Liam rolled his eyes. "Fine, Jeremy and I will have to discuss this with each other somewhere else." He stated, he and Jeremy went toward the exit when they saw David motioning toward them, they went down the stairs.

Bill paused the recording and searched for the basement camera, but the footage for it for that day was corrupted, even on the secret backup server.

"'I might have to tell FORMAL about it?' Sounds like you're not actually interested in divulging further." Dan noted.

West sighed. "Yeah, I suppose. I knew there was a potential that something bad might happen, and when it did, I did think that perhaps they did do it, but I know those two, and they are just too weak to take another's life."

"Are they too weak to enact a plan for another?" Bill asked.

"If it involved taking another life, then perhaps no. They wouldn't hurt a fly or actively help someone hurt a fly, sure Lamprey and Jeremy seemed angry, and so was I when they told me about Elliot's murder, but I only wanted to see justice done. But knowing that Markov worked with two of Rhombodian's most brilliant tacticians made me believe that they were right, if the ACB came knocking upon the door, Markov might have been able to destroy all the evidence and get away with it. That's why I chose to do nothing." West admitted.

"It seems you have failed in giving FORMAL enough trust." Bill added.

"From what you have said, you had knowledge that a potential crime, murder in this case, might be committed in the near future, and since you didn't admit it to anyone at the time you found out, this means that you could be found guilty as an accessary. Do you understand?" Dan asked.

"Yes doctor, I'm sorry doctor." West relented.

"One more question before Bill arrests you." Dan stated.

"What is that?" West asked.

"Did you notice anything odd in this room after your on-camera discussion with Liam?"

"Yes, neither the FORMAL camera or microphone were plugged into the cloud databox. Everything that it recorded on that day had been erased, all that was left was a ghost folder and it was blocked with a powerful technorack virus. Only a U ranked tecknorack can break it."

"No doubt that by now the virus has consumed all the code that can be reconstructed, so even if we gave a technorack crystal to a rank B or higher tecknorack so the virus could be removed, not even a god of technology could bring back the footage that was lost." Bill said sombrely.

"Such a shame. Even when I use a technorack crystal my technorack rank goes to a C since I'm a natural F." Dan explained, he then pressed a button that lowered an opaque piece of glass that blocked out West, a piece of glass ascended from the floor too to prevent sound from getting to West.

"Either way, we now know that David Sword was involved somehow and he bought Jeremy and Liam down here. He knows something." Bill concluded after he knew it was safe to speak.

"But what? How would we get it out of him?" Daniel wondered. Daniel gave this some thought. "Who could have input the virus?"

Bill used his watch to find the information Dan wanted. "Frank York, rank C tecknorack and David Sword, rank A borrower."

"Frank wasn't on the surveillance we just watched though." Dan added.

"He is listed as the stocker for all the booze we saw as we walked to this room, as long as Frank was close enough, then David could borrow his ability and upgrade it to A and then using a tecknorack crystal he can upgrade it further using a crystal." Bill explained.

Dan nodded. "Check over the footage again and see if our friend Frank was there."

Bill looked over the footage again and there Frank was, entering the storeroom via the staircase at 6:00 AM, he left and re-entered at 10 and 10:30 respectively, and lastly left at 4:00 PM. David, Jeremy and Liam entered the basement at 2:30 PM. Frank was in range of David for sure during that time, but that would mean...

"I'm guessing Frank and David were friends." Dan realised.

"Because David had to have borrowed Frank's ability before in order to borrow it from a distance." Bill added.

"Yet he wasn't on that list of friends you produced earlier." Dan rebutted.

"Yes, but that was a direct friend search, I didn't turn on the 'friends of friends' filter. There was no reason to do it until now, and it's not necessary because we know of the relationship."

Dan poured himself some tea from the kettle and took a sip. "So, it appears that David is a part of Elliot's extended friend group, which makes me wonder what motive he could have had to assist in the plan to murder Markov?"

"Sounds like it's something we need to ask him about." Bill retorted.

Dan put his cup down. "Yes, but how do we even get him to talk? He seems like the type to avoid questioning."

"We'll just talk at his level." Bill added.

"Then we shall speak with his father first." Dan concluded with his pointer finger pointed upwards to emphasize his statement.

"We'd better hurry, he stops his surgeries dead on at 5:00 PM, if we don't catch him before then then we would have to get a warrant to speak with him, he has a contract with FORMAL saying that he shouldn't be disturbed during his private time without reasonable cause." Bill added.

"It's 3:35 now, the only way we're going to make it on time is via the Hyswin." Dan relayed.

Bill shook his head. "The county rangers office isn't connected to the Hyswin, not enough demand. That's why the captain drove you here."

"Then well take the train, the journey from Schomër to Bridgiton is only 30 minutes. Giving us about 50 minutes to get to Mr Sword."

"Yeah, if he lived in Everleason it would be simple, but did you forget that Mr Sword isn't originally from here, or haven't you learnt that? Leeroy Sword's practice is in Scandinavilis, even by train it's a 1 hour 34-minute journey. We simply won't have enough time."

Dan pressed the button to raise the glass. "If that's how it is, then we'll sleep in a hotel when we get to Scandinavilis and speak to Leeroy Sword as early as we can."

Bill nodded in agreement to Daniel's plan. But he wondered if this will get him anywhere? What will it take to crack this mystery open?