Ward 48

Chapter 3 [Edited]

"Modified? You're saying that this voice has been tampered with?" Lucy asked worriedly.

"Yep. If you listen closely, the deeper voice has sort of an echo and a static sound to it. And in those split seconds that the voice cracked, the echo and static disappear completely." Vera remarked.

"So, what are you saying?" Nicole asked.

"I think she's saying that there's someone in this town that's trying to fool us through voice modification. He's not doing a very good job though." Kayla said.

"He might be doing a better job than we may think. We still don't know who this guy is, and we might not figure it out for a long time," Vera remarked.

"ARGHH! This makes our job 10,000 times harder!" Nicole sighed before burying her face in her hands.

"What do you suggest we do?" Lucy asked, raking her fingers through her hair, her forehead wrinkling in confusion and frustration

"Since deciphering this on our own is next to impossible, we might need to go back to the lab," Vera suggested.

"Do you think there might be some software that we can use? I heard of this thing called Speech Decoder. I think it's in the lab in the community hall," Kayla remarked as the waitress set down a plate of french fries in the middle of the table.

"I brought my UV light and my lemon juice. I brought my tape just in case and a flash camera. Anything else we need?" Nicole asked.

"No, I think that the lab will have everything else," Lucy piped up.

"Guys, I'm glad that we are getting this together, but can we eat our food? For one, I wanna eat my food. I'm hungry!" Vera whined, making a child-like pout.

About a couple hours later, the girls all exited the diner and headed straight for the community hall.

"Well, now that we're full, where should we start?" Lucy asked.

"Nicole, you still have that recorded conversation with that mysterious guy, right?" Vera pressed, walking towards the crime lab.

"Yes I do, but, if we want to hook it up to a computer, we need the USB charger, and I didn't bring that," Nicole said.

"Lucky for you, I have a spare charger along with some with the software Speech Decoder on my computer so we can get ourselves a little bit out of the quicksand," Vera replied, ruffling through her backpack and pulling out a white apple charger.

"One, why do you carry around a spare charger, and two, what does 'get ourselves out of the quicksand' mean?" Kayla asked, making air quotes.

"It means we can solve this mystery little by little, slowly getting ourselves out of the quicksand. And I carry around a charger because you never know what's going to happen when your phone might be dead," Vera said.

"Thanks for having the charger, and lets try and get to the bottom of who this is," Nicole remarked, pushing open the door to the crime lab.

The rusty door made a squeak-squeak sound as 34 pairs of eyeballs swerved from their work desks to take a look at 4 young girls walking into a crime lab. Some even stopped their work to give questioning looks to them.

Okay, I get that we look a little out of place here, but it would be a bit better if they quit staring at us! Nicole thought whilst trying to be inconspicuous in the lab.

Vera found an empty desk and opened her computer to a background of Team Free Will's Logo. Logging in and opening the software, she hooked up Nicole's phone to the USB port in the computer.