Who Shot Optimus Prime?

Chapter Two

     After he left the scene that night, Nightbeat didn't get much time in stasis. Even if he hadn't needed to be in the office at dawn to start work on the case, he wouldn't have been well rested. What he'd seen under that sheet kept him wide awake.

     The news was on as he got ready to head into work at the CIS: the Cybertron Investigation Service.

     "This is Rook with ABN, as we return to our continuing coverage of last night's tragic events. We have been informed that Hot Rod has arrived at the High Council Pavilions to begin planning for Optimus Prime's funeral. There is still no word on whether Optimus Prime's Conjunx Endura, Elita One, is with him. We have yet to receive much information about her whereabouts, though authorities say she is safe and accounted for. . ."

     Elita One was hiding from the press? Nightbeat filed that that one away, turned off the broadcast, and headed into work.

* * *

     Nightbeat found the CIS building's lobby a hectic mess, and the chaos followed him to his desk upstairs. It was like a storm had blown through. The office commlinks were ringing incessantly, empty K-Juice boxes were scattered everywhere, and his coworkers looked like scrap. A lot of them had worked through the night. 

    Nightbeat checked in with Depth Charge and then, his own K-Juice in hand, settled in to look over the information they had. From the first witness testimonies, the timeline was pretty easy to put together:

• The guests began arriving a little before the seventh megacycle of the evening.

• Everything was normal until around the eighth megacycle, when Rachet complained of a migraine. Optimus and Elita suggested he lie down in one of the guest quarters, which he did.

• By around the tenth megacycle, most of the guests had gone home. All except for Rachet, Hot Rod, and Ultra Magnus. The group decided they were going to play cards and split up to find the hosts' deck.

• After a few cycles of searching downstairs, Optimus told Elita he thought the cards where in their quarters and went up to check.

• Elita One, Ultra Magnus and Hot Rod all claim to have been downstairs when they heard the gunshot. Rachet claims the gunshot woke him up. How ever it had happened, it was Rachet who found the Prime's body.

     Nightbeat also now had a full search's worth of information from the forensic team. The murder weapon had been found, one of Elita One's twin pistols. Her fingerprints weren't on it, in fact, no prints were. Instead, there were fibers. Trace fibers of red fabric.

    Fabric was rare on Cybertron, and expensive. This was going to rule out any of the Metroplex's staff. Only one of the VIPs could have afforded whatever item the fibers came from, and the search hadn't turned up anything like that. The killer still had it.

    There wasn't much else to go on. The shot had been clean; minimal energon splatter. That meant he'd have to wait for the autopsy to know the bullet's angle of entry, and the height of the perpetrator with it. But until then, Elita One and Rachet were his best leads.

    And Elita One had hidden herself away. Things weren't looking good for her.

    Nightbeat knocked on Depth Charge's office doorway. He looked up from his desk, "Yeah?" He questioned.

    "Elita One, where is she?" Asked Nightbeat, "I had the news on at home and they said only the authorities know her location. Do we?"

    "I have no clue, but the Elite Guard should know. You starting with her?"