Chapter Seventeen - Pressure

  Things have taken a turn for the worse. I am being bombarded by a carpet of crushing responsibilities and ulterior motives from third parties. My case has gone cold, and people have risen against me. Things could not have gone worse, in truth, this is the lowest point I have sunk to so far.

  Debrief has imposed a time limit to my investigation to some extent. If I cannot solve MC-13 before his rise to power, then there will be no chance in hell for me to retaliate. His doing has added another layer of complexity to my operations, just because it happened to coincide with his self-fulfilling machinations. I just wanted to scream more than anything, knowing that I have been utterly defeated by him. He took advantage of my involvement with MC-13. He knew that this was a case that even I would have trouble with, and banked on the fact that it would take a massive toll on me. And after two weeks of incessant work, I was drained, and Debrief took his chance. I overlooked the validity of the note because of that, and also because the trail had gone cold – I had nothing else to continue the case with.

  Right now, I am lying in my bed, just contemplating what to do next. I can only think, think as I have been doing for the past twelve or thirteen days – I cannot remember. Stopping is not an option anymore, there is only the path forward, and slowing down would only distance me from that goal. I will keep going until I die, and until that accursed case is solved. Underestimation after underestimation, I keep failing to understand my predicament. I am not dealing with the hardest case of the DPD, but myself. The case has become part of me, and along with it, I have to concur with my surroundings. Conflict is a given, and now, I have to balance my focus. There are two sides I have to constantly surveil, otherwise there will be consequences. On the side of MC-13, losing track of it would result in stillness and utmost failure on my being as a detective. While on the side of me, I have to observe the doings of Debrief and the movement of the DPD, or I could lose the rank of detective as a result.

  For the first time, I thought about the benefits of keeping a good public appearance. If I followed the footsteps of Debrief and kept up a good publicity, maybe this wouldn’t have happened. Or that is what I would like to think, but truthfully, Debrief is unpredictable. I still cannot discern whether he sabotaged me in order to fulfill his goals, or if I was his particular goal. Chances are he has a third agenda up his sleeve, considering how he operates.

  What confuses me even more is how he knew that I didn’t have factual evidence. Did he simply gamble that possibility? Or did he do something in the background? It doesn’t matter anymore. He did what he did, and now I have to deal with the after-effects.

  With Watkins out of the picture, there will be a race to appoint a new Executive Director. Perhaps that is why Debrief acted so suddenly. He wasted no time in order to remove his competition. My reputation has been kicked up like pile of resting sand, and with that, my chances at becoming director are nigh impossible. Becoming a director depends on one’s relations with the department and their abilities as a detective. Knowing that, I can assume that there will be two major roles in this contest. There is Detective Debrief, obviously – a masterful detective who has the eyes of the public on his side, and someone who has the skills to lead the DPD if he were to become director. Then, there is Detective Nagel, the ‘Venerable’, as he is called. Out of the three S-tier detectives, he is by far the most experienced, tallying over thirty years of detective work. He could be considered as the elder of the DPD, and his reputation is second to none. However, his age is, too, a factor in this, and he could very well lose to the much younger Debrief.

  Truthfully, Debrief has no equal opponents in this race. I am not interested in the position myself, removing yet another opponent. With how much he is moving in the background, chances are that he has already set things in motion. I have to go with the fact that he will soon become director, and with that, the race against time will officially begin.

  But, can I do this? Can I realistically defeat the Flawless before Debrief’s ascension to power? I have no leads, nothing to further my progress, yet here I am, talking as if I have the slightest chance of winning? Laughter, I am laughing. This is sheer absurdity. I cannot win this no matter what. I have been placed against an unstoppable power, and in comparison, I am a very movable object. Nothing I can do with my two hands will make me win this. I can do nothing but laugh. This is hilarious.

  I am crying. Laughing. Crying. Laughing. What can I do? What the hell could this feeble detective do? Should I just give up? No, I still have a chance. But what chance do I have? Debrief will end you, and if not him, the Flawless will. Flawless. Debrief. Flawless. Both of them are my rivals. Rival. A true rival that matches my ability. What ability? I cannot do anything. I am but a roach in comparison. A roach, I am. Roach. Laugh, you can only laugh. This is hilarity. Enjoy it. Enjoy. Cry. Suffering, just for you. This task is beyond my means. Impossible. You are an S-tier. S-tier. The best. Unequivocally the most capable, Detective Vince Capleaf. But who cares? MC-13 is an SS-tier case. You are nothing in comparison. Nothing. You are nothing. You cannot do this. Just stop, stop trying before you embarrass yourself. Let the others do the work, give up. Let them take the floor. Give up your reputation. Yes, Debrief is better. It is time for you to give up. Give up.

  I am losing my mind. Along with my physical problems, my sanity is also slipping. This is becoming some kind of a hysterical guessing game. Which side will do me in first? The Flawless, Debrief, or my consciousness? I admit it, I am powerless. Not only that, but I have indirectly caused the death of Watkins. Why? Could I have let him be if he just gave me the case? No, he would’ve killed himself regardless. This all went wrong. I hoped that with the insider information acquired, I could finally make some progress. However, I tunnel-visioned, and I lost track of reason. The only thing I acquired is the entirety of the DPD against my neck.

  There must be something I can do - something to turn this ship around. There were times when things felt nigh impossible to achieve, yet I never faltered, and pressed on despite the circumstances. This time, it is no different. I only have an obstacle in my path. I can conquer it, just as I did many times before. Think. There is always a way forward, even when met against a wall. Even in an enclosed room there is a way forward.

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  Dimensional Trap Theory. How does one trap a figure in the second dimension? They draw a line around them, which results in a square. In the perspective of the encaged one, there is no way out. However, in other dimensions, they still have the top and bottom to escape from. How does one trap a figure in the third dimension, though? They have to be fully enclosed from all six sides, resulting in a cube around them. From there, how does one escape from such a prison? In a normal line of thinking, the theorem ends there, and the person remains trapped. However, the same solution could be applied as when the second-dimensional person escaped. There is a way to look further. The next step from the third dimension is what? The fourth dimension.

  There is no way to conceive the appearance of the fourth dimension, but there is a way to measure it. It is time itself that is the fourth parameter. Width, length, height, and time. The third-dimensional person has to look at it from yet another perspective, just as the second-dimensional person discovered the aspect of height. The person trapped in a cube has to do the same, look past the borders of their reality. Think outside the box, the saying goes. In the fourth dimension, they have to go back to the time when they were not jailed, or a time where the jail is no longer there. It is yet another factor that remains for me to discover.

  There must be something outside my borders. There must be a dimension I am not grasping – something I have yet to discover. Something about what has already happened, look at it from another angle. The Flawless is the progenitor of MC-13, and he kills to only satisfy his desires. His victims are in most cases couples, who he kills every nine days. He mutilates them in the most unorthodox method that could exist. What is the reason behind any of it? A magnum opus. He has been doing this for at least twenty long years. There is a motive, no one would dedicate their whole life to something so formless. There is something to perfect, something that he has been doing for twenty years. The murders are always the same, unless things go wrong. For twenty years, the same action over and over, trying to perfect it – that is what the Flawless is doing. Something clicked in my head.

  An artist. Someone who dedicates a tremendous amount of time to perfect their “magnum opus”. Someone that desires to create something perfect, something flawless. The profile of the mastermind behind all of these actions is forming. The Flawless is a self-proclaimed artist who has dedicated their life to perfecting his art. And his art is a picture – the same scene over and over, depicted ever so slightly different each time I see it. He created the same scenario for us each time, but for him, he must have seen something different about his actions. A different person brings up a varying atmosphere to a picture. A new scene creates a different setting. All of these factors are something that the Flawless considers when he commits his atrocities. For twenty years, he has been doing this – creating the perfect picture.

  The cogs are turning. The Flawless is an artist who yearns to create the perfect picture. His setting is a person sitting on a chair, dead and lifeless. And all of these murders, all of these troubles we have gone through, they are the effort to capture the perfect scene. That is the motive behind his actions. That is the element I have been missing the whole time – the part where the image is taken.

  I am thinking too normal. This doesn’t yield results. Think crazy. Don’t think why the Flawless is doing this, think why the Flawless has to do this. Even the most insane people have their own reason to do something. The Flawless is a human, and that is something that will never change. There is something that propels him to create the perfect image, whether it be desire, drive, or need. The culprit is estimated to be at least thirty-five years of age, which makes it that they began doing this when they were, at most, fifteen years old. And that is only the rigid assumption based off Faust’s memory. Think crazier. The Flawless’ confrontation with the Faust family happened twenty years ago, but there is nothing that says he wasn’t doing this before that. The Flawless had to have been at most fifteen years old back then. Then, this desire manifested even earlier than that.

  The doings of the Flawless started in his childhood. Think. What leads children to do inconceivable acts like this? Neglect – the need for attention. The Flawless must have had a rough past in order to behave like this. No, that is not the whole truth. The Flawless is an artist. That had to have been drilled into him all the way when he still had a family to feed him. The need to strive for perfection, it had to stem from somewhere back then.

  I am reaching for the slightest straws at this point. I felt my heart racing as each thought made itself apparent. There was an end to this, and I was determined to make it so. This wasn’t going to end in vain. I am running out of time, and I needed to act.

  A perfectionist from a young age, something caused by the pressure of parents. That is a harsh assumption, though, assuming that the Flawless isn’t an orphan. A parental figure pressured the Flawless into his craft – to make it perfect. Why is the craft a murder, however? This is a strange line of thought – something must have gone down. Something went wrong with those intentions. Whatever happened, it must have resulted in the young Flawless to snap. Otherwise, these murders would not be happening.

  What about the Nine Days Rule? That is something that the Flawless followed through at any given opportunity. There had to be some significance to this. There must be. But, I cannot think of anything! Now is not the time to stop the line of thought. However, this is too abstract to make a concrete assumption out of. Regardless, the profile and backstory have been constructed. The Flawless must have been a troubled child because of what is happening now. No one would resort to murder unless it was the last option – that is what I came to learn during my years as a detective. All of his actions are methodical, and none of them are done for no reason. The act of setting the scene for the picture, the nine days, and the selection of victims. They were couples, most of the time. Older couples, which could be reclassified as parents. Could that be it?

  No, that seems unbelievable. The “pictures” depicted parents, strewn on chairs, sitting in a calm pose, and dead. His actions manifested from his childhood, back when his parents pressured him to pursue and perfect something. That pressure must have turned into disgust at some point, which resulted in the snap. The Flawless snapped against his parents when he reached his breaking point. Could that have been the moment? Was that the starting point of his actions now? My breath quivered with such discovery. It seemed almost unbelievable that I reached this conclusion – the conclusion of the Flawless of the past killing his parents in a fit of rage. Everything started to add up – the motive, the actions, the timeline. It all made sense. My heart and body shook in an amalgam of emotions, not knowing what to feel. The only thing I knew, and the only thing I hoped for, is that this would pave the path to success