vivarium | THE HEART OF THE MATTER

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THE HEART OF THE MATTER - CONCLUSION

This morning starts off with Calhoun blowing an air horn at precisely 6AM. He will not tolerate anyone sleeping in, and if they attempt to he’ll just keep blowing his horn until everyone gathers in front of the table that he stands on. Upon closer inspection, characters will realize that beside him is a large cage, being held shut with a heavy duty lock, and contains numerous brown envelopes, some more bulky than others. Beside that is a container of lighter fluid and a stack of matches.

He puts down his air horn and raises his arms, shaking his head.

“Even as tiny as your little brains might be, you should all know that your time is now up! No more shows, because you know what, this is pathetic. Is this really the best that you test subjects can do? We got two more shows yesterday, yeah, but nothing that tingled my spine. How disappointing.”

He shakes his head, and then nudges the cage with his paw just a bit.

“Well, you all know what that means! You can say goodbye to all your precious memories and further details about your secrets. Everything that you’ve so carelessly gave up on and didn’t care about is right beside me. I will burn everything away, so all twelve of you will never have the chance to get them bac--”

And then he suddenly stops.

“--Hmmm?”

Calhoun stands on his tips of his bottom paws and looks at the room, from one side to the other, pointing at each one silently.

“Wait a minute, there’s only eleven of you here! Who are we missing?” He takes a second to go through everyone before answering himself. “We’re missing the Hat-Wearing Test Subject!”

During the entire commodation of suddenly being woken up and seeing all your secrets/memories in that cage, minutes before they’re burned away, no one might have noticed that they might have been one person short. Now, looking around, it’s true. Akiko is nowhere to be seen in the group, nor does she seem to be in the warehouse’s lobby.

Calhoun lets out a long (clearly dragged out and exaggerated) groan.

“Ugh, of all times that she’s out. Just when I was getting all dramatic and in the mood too…”

He slumps over, but then he stands right back up again, as if hit with lightning. He points at everyone.

“Okay, time out!! Instead, you’re going to find this Annoying Test Subject and bring her out here! I don’t care if you have to drag her from the toilets, just go find her, so I can get to burning your precious things and reveal your secrets!”

He will end it with that, and should anyone try to argue against him or attempt to negotiate with him, they will find it worthless. He will refuse to speak and just tell them to hurry up, find their dumb Hooky-Playing Test Subject! He’ll be here waiting, should you find her, so the search begins.

However, characters will soon discover that Akiko is nowhere to be seen. She’s not in the warehouse lobby, that’s for sure, but she left her hoodie and hat behind, so she must have stepped out quickly to the washroom. Once going in and calling for her, though, characters will only be greeted by silence in the washroom. Then how about the lounge? Perhaps she couldn’t sleep and wanted to go through a few video games, but yet again, she is not there. How about the second floor of the warehouse? The stairway? The elevator? Everywhere they look, she cannot be found. It’s almost as if she has complete disappeared. Eventually, it will come to the fact that while they have thought they’ve checked everywhere, there was still one room they haven’t searched:

The cafeteria.

That’s not possible, though, since it’s not like she could be in there. She doesn’t have enough BP, but there’s no where else she can be. A feeling of dread and fear might begin to pool up, as someone pulls on the lever. A metallic groan fills the air, and the doors slide open...

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Heiji didn't draw back when that stench first hit him, but immediately rushed forward. He knew that scent, and for whatever reason, he knew what he was going to find inside.

He allowed himself only a short moment of shock before he made his way to Akiko's body. Once there, he reached into his pockets, pulled out a pair of gloves, and put them on. That done, he knelt down to examine the scorch marks on the corpse. And the hole in her head.

One explosion, originating from the wrist area, that had taken out a good chunk of her skull. He was careful to step around the splatters of blood and brain matter as much as he could, looking from the body to the doors and back again.

Then he looked at the bracelet on his own wrist.

*After Snake had helped Calhoun clean up the mess, it seemed natural to want to go to Heiji, someone who clearly had knowledge of police procedures, to figure things out. Except.*

*Except in the sobering light of a new day, Snake knew he'd made some poor choices. He wasn't going to apologize for them because they honestly did have to try something to appease Calhoun and they did get an answer that helped him know what exactly he needed. However, in doing so he'd abused part of the trust put in him by someone who had clearly stated he wanted no part in Snake getting himself injured.*

*Did he still have a friend? Snake wasn't sure. In light of the death of someone, it wasn't that important. But it was important in another way, if he could help find out who killed Akiko or if he needed to step away and let other people handle it.* Hello, Heiji.

Heiji turned. "Up and about, huh?" Well, at least Snake was looking better today than he had lying on that couch. If he was well enough to walk around, he was probably okay. At least until they found out if the wound was infected or not.

Unusually, Heiji had the brim of his cap turned the right way around.

*Snake was better, but not exactly well, looking a bit strained in his face. His hand hurt along with his arm, not helped by him cleaning up the mess but he had to do SOMETHING and that seemed like a job he could do.*

I would classify myself as barely functioning, but making do. *He canted his head toward Heiji. He couldn't tell anything about Heiji's hat but he did sense a change in his voice. If Heiji really did know about murder scenes, perhaps this was him all business?* Do you...do you want me to help? With figuring out the murder, I mean.

Heiji barely hesitated; he wouldn't have stopped anyone from trying to find out who killed Akiko, of course, and Snake seemed pretty sharp. That he'd be an asset in figuring this out was a given. "Sure. Far as I know there ain't anything wrong with your brain. I'll tell ya what I know so far."

"Akiko's body sustained severe trauma and burns to the left arm and left skull. The damage was consistent with a small, extremely concentrated explosion that had left her right eye almost untouched. The wounds from the blast caused massive exsanguination, which would've killed her quickly even if the damage to her head hadn't.

Upon further examination of the blood spatter and pattern of tissue damage, it's clear that it was a single explosion that damaged both her arm and skull. The blast locus was her left wrist. Judging from her close proximity to the warehouse doors, it's easy to deduce her actions during the last few moments before her death.

Finding herself confined in the cafeteria, Akiko attempted to escape. She knew the rules about trying to get in without the required 9 BP. When she couldn't force the doors open herself, she pounded on them with her fist, trying to let us know that she was trapped inside. During that time, the explosive went off... and took her wrist and head with it.

This is all consistent with Calhoun's security footage, which shows the murderer pushing Akiko inside and her tryin' to escape. But due to poor video quality and the angle, it was impossible to distinguish anything about the killer besides the hand they used to shove her in.

Questioning Calhoun revealed that in addition to Soporil and Tubocurarine, the BP bracelets also contain compact explosives, which are reserved to deal with uncooperative subjects if the drugs prove insufficient. He confirmed that the explosives go off when the wearer of a bracelet enters a restricted area without permission."

*Wow. That...was a lot of information. Heiji really hadn't been boasting. Observing and solving crimes was his forte. Snake covers his eyes with his left hand, thinking how the scene looked to him.*

Which hand shoved her in?

Heiji shook his head. "Couldn't tell from the recording. I was trying to figure out if they had a bracelet on, but I couldn't see that, either. Well, if ya think about it for a second, there's no reason for the rat to give up that kinda information. After all, if we found out who it was..."

He pulled the brim of his cap over his eyes. "...Well, you could argue that that might get him what he wants, too. What I can say was that there wasn't any hesitation. Whoever did it was all in."

*Absently, Snake noted that Heiji didn't sound angry with him at all. Either he was distracted by the case, genuinely not angry or he was saving it up for later. He'd guess he'd find out later.*

I wonder...Heiji, because Akiko died, it means that all of our memories and secrets are safe. If it was one of us, it means someone either needed to remember something or needed to protect a secret so badly that the person didn't hesitate to kill.

*Which...didn't make him a very trustworthy person in that regard. However, he was passed out on the couch and the only way ANYONE could sleep on that thing would be because of drugs.*

Heiji tensed when Snake started on that part about their memories and secrets being safe. If Akiko's death was what it had taken to buy the possibility that some day, he might be able to assuage his own personal guilt, then... well, so what? At this point, he didn't care if he ever remembered.

"So whatcha trying to say? The possibility this would happen was always there. We can't trust each other, but we gotta trust each other... the big difference now is what happens if someone gets fingered as the culprit."

Heiji wasn't going to say that that it was murder, but lbr it was probably murder.

We'll have to determine what to do with the murderer now or it could easily spiral out of control, depending on who it is. We'd need to...hold or a trial or contain the murderer somehow. *Won't that be a giant pain in the ass when it happens? Because all they needed were reprisal murders.*

So we know what happened but we have no idea who did and we can only surmise the reason it happened was to either regain a memory or protect a secret. And by the way, there probably is something wrong with my brain because I can't come up with anything other than this.

"It ain't just up to us," said Heiji. "It depends on everyone else here, too." As much as he believed in the rule of law, he also knew it was possible that someone else might not see it that way. And depending on who the culprit was, it might not be so easy to contain them...

"I said there ain't anything wrong with your brain 'cause what you're sayin' is true," said Heiji. He was still facing Snake, but looking off slightly to the side, almost like he was speaking in a begrudging fashion. He touched a thumb to the center of his chest. "It's this."

Oh, right. Snake couldn't see what he was doing. "I think ya got something wrong with your heart."

True. Depending on who did it...*What if it was the least likely person? Or that person you would never suspect?*

*Well. That was a pretty damning statement. At the same time, Heiji wasn't yelling, just stating the facts. Snake couldn't really deny that.* Because I didn't hesitate to hurt myself or other people to essentially get something I wanted. Is that what you're telling me?

"No, 'cause you care about that girl so much, you were willing to go that far. Only if she was that important to you, ya think she'd get all bent out of shape just 'cause you lost your memory? She stuck by you after you lost all that other stuff; she'd be over the moon just to see you alive. If you end up dead, I bet she'll be cryin' her heart out, damn!"

"And the way you keep saying all this stuff about people havin' to put up with you and being useless... the heck is that about? You think it's impossible people just like havin' you around? No wonder you got that attitude!" In other words, Heiji was alternately angry at Snake for taking the risk, worried about him and Ema, upset that he saw the need to pull this stunt, and mad at himself for having lent the knife to Snake in the first place.

Edited 2014-09-01 16:25 (UTC)

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Piper didn't stay to investigate the body. As soon as the smell hit, she remembered that severed arm inside the piano, and she shut her eyes and tried to get away from the room as quickly as she could while not looking at anything. It pretty much ended with her in a corner, breathing into her shaking hands and wishing that she were not so intimately familiar now with the scent of decay.

"Who is it?" she asks, not wanting to see the body of the girl who was so kind to her, so friendly and so pitifully unsure of herself. "It's Akiko, isn't it?"

Oh, God. She saw Akiko only hours ago. They talked about Japanese pop stars. They'd talked about being on a puzzle-solving team together...

That'll never happen now. Piper finally opens her eyes and looks at the corpse of someone who wasn't her friend, but who might have been- who should have been.

"Yeah," said Heiji, stripping off the gloves. He'd have to clean them later. "There's no mistake about it. Someone thought they'd make a show of it and got her involved. But I can't think anyone here'd have a grudge against her. Maybe they picked her 'cause she was the smallest. She trusted everybody..."

Damn, if only he'd been there...! But he'd had to look after Snake, and no telling if someone who was knocked out from medication would've been an even more tempting target.

"Did she go wandering off alone?" Piper asks that without a trace of blame or judgment in her voice; she's just trying to sort out what happened in a way that makes sense in her head. To fit a story together.

"So no one saw when it happened?"

Heiji shook his head. "Don't think so. There wasn't really any reason for her to be wandering off in the middle of the night, and as far as I know, she wasn't a sleepwalker. Anything's possible, but the more likely explanation is that the killer lured her away from the rest of us. Maybe she heard a sound, or maybe they were brazen enough to ask her to come with them."

"In any case, we can be sure that there were witnesses." He pointed to one of the security cameras. "It's just that they ain't feel too inclined to share with the rest of us. I saw some of it, though. I dunno how much you wanna know, but there's something we gotta worry about in addition to the drugs -- the bracelets are also equipped with a small explosive. In case we really misbehave."

"Asked her? Like if they were someone she knew?" That's great, Piper thinks - everyone here could very well be complicit.

Given that she can't remember anything but her name, she could be complicit. Someone with the power to take away memories and give them back could do all sorts of gruesome things if they put their mind to it.

She sobs and presses her fingers and thumb to her temple. "At least explosives don't give you a chance to feel them coming."

Heiji pulled the brim of his cap down to shade his eyes. "Ms. Chapman... in here, everyone knows everyone."

Though maybe not as well as they should. He wasn't going to bring up the very real possibility that the bracelet would have displayed some kind of warning message before it went off, or that Akiko had already known that being trapped in the cafeteria might mean death of a different sort.

"I'm going to try and find out what happened. But either way, we're gonna have to let her parents know once we get outta here."

"We don't even know her last name. We don't even know what country she is- she was from."

Piper begins to cry in earnest, wiping her tears and snot on the sleeve of her prison uniform.

Edited 2014-09-09 00:53 (UTC)

"We'll find out her last name, and we already know the area she was from. Believe me -- someone like that, you can bet her folks are looking for her." Unfortunately, Heiji didn't have any tissues for Piper, but what else could they do right now?

"...Hey, you need to go to the washroom? I'll come with ya if you do."

She nods. For a moment, she finds herself beyond words. She feels so pathetic, so helpless in the face of horrors that she knows someone like her shouldn't have to face. "Yes," she whines.

Luckily for Piper, Heiji agreed with her on that front -- no one should have to see one of their friends exploded all over the cafeteria. He walked over with her to the washroom, pulled out a couple of paper towels, and gave them to her.

"Here, use these." Unfortunately, he didn't know much about comforting women twice his age, but he tried patting her on the shoulder anyway, figuring that she was also afraid of what might happen to her. "It'll be okay. We'll get outta here."

Piper feels guilty - just a little bit - about making Heiji stand with her while she cries for nigh on five minutes. Her face gets red and blotchy, contorted into the tragedy mask of Grecian despair.

"She won't get out of here." Her voice is mewling, sad and almost child-like in the simplicity of her statement. "You're right. When we get out...we need to make sure her parents know."

Meanwhile, Heiji had mostly just sort of checked out mentally after the first two minutes or so -- sorry, Piper, detective thought train just keeps on rolling.

"But how'd they get her to come along with them so easily? I don't think she'd just get up in the middle of the night and follow someone like that, unless she really trusted them. If they said it was urgent, or if she got woken up by a noise, wouldn't she wake up someone else? Unless they said it was about her memory..."

That was right -- Akiko never had told him what her memory had been, meaning that like with the others, it was probably something she wanted to keep to herself. If someone claimed to have information on that, or wanted to talk about what Calhoun had told them...

Either way, it was completely unforgivable, taking advantage of Akiko's kind nature like that.

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