Ghost Kisses

Somniphobia

I couldn't sleep. Each time I closed my eyes, all I could hear was the morse code beeping in my head, the terrible message hidden in it.

My death was no accident. Find the file. Find G. Help me Tango, please.

It was the last sentence that got to me. Zedaph needed my help. Help to figure out who murdered him. But that still begged the question why? Why did Zedaph need to know?

Annoyed at the lack of sleep, I pulled myself out of bed and grabbed the laptop off my desk before heading to the kitchen. I needed energy. Impulse would probably strangle me if he knew I was making coffee instead of sleeping, but that was a problem for later me.

I set the kettle on the stove before settling onto a barstool and opening my laptop. My main goal was to do some research on the death of Zedaph Playne. If I was gonna help solve his murder case, I needed to know who he was.

I typed in his name and started scrolling. Various articles about Hermitcore Tech filled my screen. The title of one caught my eye:

'HTI Welcomes Zedaph Playne, Engineering Extraordinaire!'

It seemed like a good enough place to start. I clicked the link and started scanning through the article. It was short and was mainly just a quoted interview Zedaph had had with some journalist. And then I reached the bottom and paused. There was a picture.

Zedaph Playne smiled at me from the screen. He wore a suit and tie, and his fluffy blonde hair framed shiny purple eyes. He was standing in front of the HTI building with two other people who wore lab coats. They seemed to be important.

I couldn't tear my eyes away. The picture may have been just a moment captured in time, but to me it was gold. This was the first time I had seen what Zedaph looked like. This was the moment that it truly clicked that he had lived. This was Zedaph.

I was pulled out of my trance by the screaming kettle. I quickly stood up, tearing my eyes off of the screen. I tripped over my own feet and scrambled to keep my balance as I grabbed the screeching kettle off of the stove. I sighed and got to work grinding coffee beans. Once I made my drink I took a swig and smiled. There it was, the liquid energy I needed.

Having recollected myself, I sat back down and returned to my computer. I was supposed to be looking at Zedaph's work environment and colleagues, not his charming smile. I moved onto a few other articles and scanned through them. Eventually I had the bright idea to pull up the Hermitcore Tech website.

When I opened the homepage, I was met with a picture of some of the staff and bold text that read "Welcome To Hermitcore Technological Inc!". I recognized two of the people in the picture as the two people who had been with Zedaph in the other photo. I made a mental note to research them. The rest of the people in the picture were unfamiliar, but looked old enough to probably have worked there when Zedaph did. In total there were five people, four males and one female.

I searched through the site until I found a list of HTI employees, each with contact info and job titles, as well as the year they were hired. Most of the employees were newer, but I made a list of the people who were hired before or during the time Zed was in the company. Sure, someone who wasn't working at HTI could have killed him, but it was unlikely due to the fact that Zed had mentioned his former co-workers specifically.

After going through all the people on the list, I had a solid 14 names to look into. I went back through and made note of who each person was:

Xisuma V. - CEO

Doc M. - Vice president

Bdubs O. - Head of Administration

Cub F. - Head of Engineering