Chapter Nine - Absurdism

  I have come to learn a lot in the span of these days, but the chance at victory is still too dim. Where I stood now was a position that allowed no preemptive action. This was the stage of preparation, and for the next six days, preparation I did.

  I have gone over everything there is to know about MC-13 with Sylphie, who had turned my office into her home. After the Stingrove District visit, we came to understand that we are not so different. When I finally got her approval, she spent no time hesitating about working with me. And with that apparent disapproval, her sour attitude also fizzled out. She now resides in this office more than I do, making it seem like I have a daughter at work or something like that. As for the office itself, it has been partially converted into the MC-13 Investigation Office. Here is where all of the intelligence is kept, and a large bookcase accommodates all of it inside numerous files sorted in alphabetical order. I have Sylphie to thank for that, when it comes to staying orderly and organized, I perform worse than a D-tier. That may sound as sub-par performance, but is immediately refuted by my track record – there was simply no need to ever organize information. Not only that, but most cases barely reach over a file or two. With how this case is going so far, I planned ahead of time to make enough room for all possible information we could come to learn later down the line.

  When I said that Sylphie turned my office into her home, I was being literal. A whole corner of the room is dedicated to a mattress where she sleeps every night. She claimed that it is for the sake of “efficiency”, but I am more of the opinion that she is probably homeless. Most likely not, given a detective’s pay, but I have never seen her leave out of work. Ever since she moved in, she has always been at the precinct. One could say that she is stuck in a metaphorical prison.

  Overall, our output nearly doubled under this regime. We have spent a total of six days coupled and linked together, working on the same thing – discovering the modus operandi of MC-13. With almost a week to spare, we operated like gears in a machine, incessantly. There were all sorts of progress being made. Charts, graphs, documentation, processing – all of it was being done one way or another. We also compiled the entire premise of the case into a single document. Usually, that is the job of an Assistant Detective, so I let Sylphie do the honors. It covers everything from the twenty-year-long history to the present day involving the Trelton Hotel and Linda Miller.

  As for those twenty years, Sylphie appeared just as surprised as I was. When I heard that revelation from the teary-eyed Faust, a sight rarer than a blue moon, I could not believe that such an important aspect of the case remained hidden in the shadows. It made both of us realize the scale of what we were actually dealing with. This was no ordinary murder, but a sophisticated link of convoluted operations and actions. With that fact in mind, we posed the possibility that the Flawless, whose title I accustomed Sylphie to, is an older man with thirty-five years of age at least. She also revealed to me during this time that one of the previous detectives came in contact with the instigator himself. The whole situation was that the detective was holding onto the case for a good six months, but made no progress on it. He simply ignored the murders, knowing that there was nothing to be found on the scenes of the crime. Sylphie, being by his side back then, urged him to keep going, but he refused.

  He became too fearful to touch the case, but still couldn’t put the case down for someone else to take the stead. During that time, the detective became a by-proxy victim himself. His closest family was mutilated by the Flawless, leaving him with mental scars. Only then did he finally drop the case, putting another detective on the chopping block.

  That only happened once, despite the handful of detectives who were affiliated with MC-13. As frightening as the thought of being targeted was, those odds were in my favor. Out of the entirety of Misult City, the chances of me being a target are slim. There are other factors that we cannot fully grasp, and one of them is the matchup between the Face and some of their victims. From the footage, we noted that this killer is not of a large and powerful build. How could they then possibly incapacitate some of their larger victims? Some of them reached up to two hundred fifty pounds, I can hardly believe that the Face could stand a chance against beasts like that. Taking that into account, we marked the Face as a massive threat. Going by the assumption that she is physically adept enough to kill grown men, a one-on-one scenario against them would result in a loss, most likely.

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  My service gun is an option. However, it is only meant for self-defense, and any use of it has to be documented and put against reason of trigger. If the time came when I had to intercept the Face, I would have to justify the use as self-defense, adding another layer of needless bureaucracy to everything. This case wasn’t complicated enough, it seems.

  What has all of this effort amassed to? A thin chance at progress, overall. As unfortunate as it sounds, there is nothing to be done about our cause as of right now. The killer is still on the loose, and as long as we don’t have enough information, we cannot do anything to prevent that. Despite that, however, I can sufficiently state that our efforts were not in vain. The key discovery that helped us relates back to the previous recorded three years of MC-13. Sylphie used her extensive perception in order to discover a certain theme. A recurring trend was being followed by the Flawless, and our plight during these six days made that discovery possible. Each count of murder committed happened on a certain day of the year, and that information has been recorded every single time. Our discovery is related to a discrepancy, or rather a detection. The days of every single archived death caused by the severed spine asphyxiation method are always nine days apart! The date before my first encounter was on April 23rd, and the next action was made on May 2nd, the date of my first battle against MC-13. This trend has been followed for those three years with very little errors, those probably made by the DPD. A few murders may have gotten lost, since some of these differences are eighteen days instead of nine. But for the most part, this holds true. For the sake of holding a consistent naming scheme, I called this phenomenon the Nine Day Rule.

  If we were to apply this rule to the next attack, it is ordained to happen on May 11th. Why exactly is this true? We do not know, but it is something that holds water. There could be limitations of the criminal that we do not know about, or perhaps they can only kill so much before their appetite is sated. What is the Nine Day Rule good for, however, is that it could potentially reveal upcoming targets ahead of time. May 11th is coming up in two days, and if the method really does predict the murderer’s next action, then we can finally say that there is a retrospective action available.

  The most cryptic thing we know about is the “magnum opus” that Linda mentioned. It was a phrase uttered by the Face during the murder of Howard Ritter. Sylphie and I debated on its meaning for most of these six days, and a conclusion was indeed made after that. A few possibilities came up regarding the meaning of those sayings. One could be that the Flawless treats his actions as some kind of passion project, something that requires precision in order to be perfected, and those words signify that he has yet to reach the state of satisfaction. The other theory, however, suggests that the Flawless envisions himself as the subject of improvement, seeking to become the magnum opus himself. I think that this is something that will be more important later, as right now, it serves no purpose but to distract us from the real root of the problem.

  Given everything we have come to learn about MC-13, what should happen on May 11th should be the following. A citizen of Misult City will be paid a visit by the Face. Their fear and distress will be quelled by them in a very thorough and swift manner in the form of the nail procedure. Then, the police will be notified, as is nine times out of ten the case. The next step, that is when we arrive in order to find out and investigate.

  Nevertheless, this is not ideal. Banking the whole plan on sacrificing a life is immoral and downright incorrect to do. Even though we are not in a position of power to alter this path that the killer will take, we can try to oppose it. Everything that could help us has already been checked. The profiles of the victims, their ages, personality – none of it amounted to anything usable. Aside from a few exceptions that render this finding useless, the most targeted group are older people still part of families. In other words, there is no control group for MC-13. Differently saying, the Flawless kills nigh indiscriminately.

  The whole situation is absurd. We are able to only rely on heaps of recorded corpses, just to find out how the next person gets thrown into the pile with the others. None of this is how a detective should operate, but what else can we do? As I already once thought before, my investigation is still within the scope of the Flawless. There is nothing within the assortment of actions I took that made the killer show fear. Not even fear – just any reaction as a whole. It is the same as when an ant tries to crawl into your picnic basket. You know they are there, yet you do nothing, because deep down you are aware that one ant would be unable to harm you, nor the delectable food in the basket. Right now, I am that same ant, and I can feel the crushing weight of the Flawless gazing upon me from above.

  The next two days will be empty, but also filled with anticipation. If we were to do any more office work, not only would we probably go insane, but it would also not result in any more valuable information. We basically did everything there is to be done in the span of six days. I thought that during these times, and after the resurgence of spirit I experienced thanks to the conversation with Faust, things would start looking up. But they never did.