A FRACTURE IN THE CONSCIOUSNESS ✓

TYLER

The case was supposed to be simple. It was just another killer to study and catch. Another notch in their belt of serial killers thwarted.

But it wasn't that simple. This case, of all the cases Tyler had been assigned, ended up being the catalyst for chaos.

A serial killer was plaguing the Los Angeles area. It wasn't anything new, minus the peculiar choice of victims. Even with that being a concern, it didn't become a federal issue until one of the victims was found in New York, in the steps of a university.

Tyler's team was part of the BAU, the behavioral analysis unit. They specialized in analyzing the behavior of notorious villains, predicting their movements and potential victims. It wasn't an exact science, but accurate enough in their findings to have their own branch in the FBI.

The killer they were assigned this time, named The Einstein Killer by the media, had been kidnapping and torturing geniuses around the United States like some twisted road trip, though half of his victims were based in Los Angeles. He'd gotten to three young professors and four kid prodigies and dumped their bodies on the campus of their respective colleges.

All they knew about this man- yes, they knew it had to be a man- was that he was ruthless and cunning with his killings, treating them like a sport. He had to have prior experience or education pertaining to psychology or any type of science in order to get access to the chemicals used in the torture.

That was what Tyler predicted, anyways. It proved to be helpful since they tracked the chemicals down to either Stanford or UCLA, but it wasn't enough to stop an eighth body from showing up when they were three days on the case.

He scribbled something down in the margins of his notebook so he wouldn't forget it. However, as soon it was on paper, the thought was lost to him.

"This guy's a sicko," Josh mumbled, shuffling through the files of potential victims they didn't know about before.

Their team was hauled up in the LAPD's meeting room, trying to track down the killer's steps before he could capture another victim. They couldn't explain the erratic pattern of murder methods or measure the time between kills. There was no clear motive and hardly anything consistent about this man and the way he killed, not even in the way he tortured the victims.

"This guy can't be an organized and unorganized killer at the same time," Mark said, dropping his pen onto the table and resting his head on the stack of files in front of him.

"Are we even sure it's a man doing this?" Deputy Stump asked. "One person can't pull this off."

Sarah raised her head off her arms. "There's only evidence of one man."

"It could be a multiple personalities case, like last year in Wisconsin," Josh suggested.

Jenna shook her head. "No, people like that devolve quickly. This killer's been up to this for what- two, three months? He's unstable but smart enough to evade police for this long."

"The only pattern I can see is in the strange victimology," Tyler said, directing his laser pointer to the white board. He waved a line around to connect the scatter pictures of the victims before their untimely demise. "All the prodigies were located in or around Los Angeles. Every kill has been in California. That means he like to travel, but not enough to raise suspicion on his part."

"But he broke pattern with the body found in New York was so weird," Jenna said. "Which is the why we're trying to figure out now. He killed Tegan in California but somehow got her body to New York without being spotted, all in time for Sara's body to be found the same day Tegan's was. His motives hadn't changed, but the body positions have."

"The eighth body found on the steps of Stanford, which makes this break in routine even stranger." Mark glanced at Tyler. "It was like he was trying to get our attention by crossing state lines."

Tyler shivered at the thought. He thought too much like those kids, too smart for their own good, probably knowing that they wouldn't be getting out of that situation alive. His chest panged with empathy. It could've easily be him out there, alone and afraid and on the precipice of death.

He fit the victim profile to a T, and that's what made this case so uncomfortable for them. Young and socially inept geniuses who had either some form of mental illness or were on the autism spectrum in some way. That was what made him such an effective FBI agent, and a potential target.

As far as Tyler knew, he fit neither of those last two categories, but his doctor had suggested a psychosomatic origin for his constant headaches, and many people on the autism spectrum had an eidetic memory, just like him.

Misdiagnosis didn't mean that the disorders didn't exist. It didn't matter either way, however. He wasn't the target. Not yet, at least.

Tyler's eyes flickered between the board where Jenna had pinned up the eight known victims and the notes of the leads they had, all coming up to be nothing. His eye caught on a familiar name, but he ignored it, scribbling it down on the corner of his notebook. "What if he's a schizophrenic?"

"Why do you say that?" Dallon, their technical analyst, asked over the speaker phone.

Jenna, the head of their team, tapped her chin with her pen. "Well, he has to have some sort of mental illness, and schizophrenics tend to be more stable when on medication."

"But medication wouldn't suppress his murderous intent," Tyler said. "Especially if he's recently gone off of them. The recurrence of his repressed delusion could be a potential trigger."

"He could also blend in with them, like he belongs around them," Sarah, one of their new additions to the team, suggested.

"How could someone this unstable blend in with anything, much less geniuses?" Josh leaned back in his chair, rubbing his eyes. "Jesus, I'm tired."

Brad, their second in command, spoke for the first time since setting up in the police office. "Because he's like them. Unstable, intelligent, trusting. The perfect atom bomb. He's smart enough to convince geniuses with his facade."

"And has a strong enough psychosis to take them and hurt them without mercy. Dal, search for everyone in the Los Angeles area who's been committed to a mental institution in the past ten years," Jenna said. "And cross reference them with names of local geniuses in newspapers."

"Alrighty. Uh oh. There's ten names on this list. I need some info to narrow it down."

"Try people who have located from New York to L.A. for the past couple of years," Brad said.

"And own some kind of property," Tyler added. "A bunker or warehouse of some kind. Some place that screams couldn't be heard."

"Two names. Brendon Urie and Tegan Quin."

Tyler tilted his head. "Tegan's one of the victims, it couldn't be her."

"One of his roommates was killed in Washington two weeks before the first body was found."

Jenna scoffed. "The trigger."

"He's living in an apartment with one other person, and he and a warehouse in Sacramento," Dallon said, his voice going up an octave.

"Weekes, can you-"

"Already on it, Jen. I'm sending the addresses to your phones now, along with his medical history and any other info I can scrounge up. It's late. Get to bed. Ciao."

He hung up after that.

Jenna checked her watch and grabbed her gun holster off the table, eyeing the others around the table who has started to pack up as well. "Alright, we'll meet back up in the morning to come up with a game plan. Get some rest, guys. We're going to have a long day tomorrow."