LUNA

V - OCHRE

PART 5 — OCHRE
Poison? What poison?

7:26 — The Audit, Old Break Room, East Wing — August 27

Mike stares at Soony, his eye and mouth twitching due to his anger. "He suffocated, did he not?" he asks, raising his eyebrow in the most condescending way possible.

"I would've just assumed something like that, you know," he adds. Soony scoffs.

"That would make sense, if it weren't for the garrotte wire that Lee found—"

"Who says that was used at all, Soony?" he interjects, surprising Soony. His arms are shaking, clenched to a fist. Mike looks around, hands out as if he's showing Soony the room. "Who says it wasn't just a remnant of this old room? It's rotting on every corner!" he adds, staring at Soony.

"Who says it wasn't used, then?"

Mike stands there, silent. Soony starts to sweat, nervous on what he'll do. Then he just smiles. "If you want me to go with your fallacy, then fine," he says, staring at Soony—or rather, their soul.

"How about you prove it. Prove that the garrotte wire wasn't used," he adds, grinning. Soony starts to think...

"There was no mention of any wound anywhere near the neck... or any signs that it was strangulation, for that matter," Lee interjects, looking at the post-mortem report. Mike's smile falters, surprised.

He turns away from Soony, facing Lee. "Alright, fair," he says. Soony is about to chuckle, "But—that does not prove anything about my speculation! Who says it was poison? Or better yet—if it was poison, how did it enter Aster's system, huh?!"

Soony and Lee look at each other. They both exchange glares, knowing that they don't have any way to prove anything. Mike looks at them both, slowly feeling their worry wash away.

"Go ahead. Answer me," he says, still twitching. Soony starts to think about what they have.

The only things they have right now that could possibly link is the vial of god-knows-what, a revolver with one bullet down, the black granular, the toxin identifier... wait, the toxic identifier. They could use that to see if there's poison in that vial... or in that gun. Soony takes out the identifier, and just pours a bit of the thing in the vial on it...

...

...

...

...

...

It's positive.

So it was poison... but that doesn't say anything about how it even got in Aster. There's no way to even prove that there was any poison involved, but if that was the case... Mike wouldn't have brought it up, and there wasn't any other way Aster could've died 'by suffocation'. All that happened was that he got shot... he got shot.

"This may be a bit of a stretch—" Soony says, but Mike immediately interrupts.

"Then don't say it, Soony," he replies, looking right at them. Soony looks exasperated. "If it's a stretch, it's probably not true. You know about this, right?" he adds, still smiling. His face is still twitching.

"You don't know until you try, sir," Soony replies. Mike groans.

"Anyway, I think there's a possibility that the revolver's bullets... were laced."

The room goes silent again. Lee and Mike look at Soony, dumbfounded. Then Mike starts to laugh at Soony's face, who groans at this insult.

"That's... that's ridiculous, Soony, and you know it," he says, his laugh turning to a cackle. He's trembling.