Hollow Point Happiness

Case 14: Check or Checkmate?

It was difficult now. After, Inti and Aja were killed by Defrag most of the Huntsmen quit their work and disappeared off into different parts of the underworld. Chris considered giving up, the only thing keeping him sane was banking on getting one more report about the Hemfields and Brandi people but I wasn't looking promising. Chris sat once more on his floor looking up at his TV screen, he flicked it over to the news. Chris was instantly enthralled.

"After the recent news of AUTOSYNC Dynamic's CEO's death, some more information has come out of the company as to what lead up to it as well as information about the string of killings inside the company. We will run what the company has released,"

A video cut in, it showed a large man in a trenchcoat being accompanied by a shorter woman and a man of average height, weirdly enough the woman was wearing a long sleeve shirt that had an extremely deep V on the back, showing down to her lower back and the man seemed to wear a lab coat. 3 things caught Chris's attention, the first thing was the woman seemed to have a tattoo of a snake body running up her spine, and secondly, he was ninety percent sure that the main 'man' was Defrag, the trenchcoat and the massive overbearing size were large giveaways, Finally, all 3 had what seemed to be an inverted and altered Warmage logo as well as a patch of a skull face over a black rectangle, Chris could make out the lets S-I-N-G and A-R on the first symbol but the skull didn't seem to have any letters or words attached. The video showed the 3 approaching the front desk and being turned away after a short exchange of words.

It cut to a different video, this time of the 'man' presumably Defrag in a long dark hallway standing over a body and grabbing an ID card from it. Then a different video of the women sitting at a computer with a bloody knife nearby. Finally, it cut to a different video, of the labcoat man, now wearing a suit with an ID card attached to it, walking around an office placing small coin-shaped objects around as well as sticking small drives into computers before looping around to grab them again after some time had passed. It cycled through a few more very similar videos of the group before ending. Something that really bugged him was the fact that all 3 repeated made eye contact with the cameras, almost like they knew he was watching.

"AUTOSYNC has come out and said they believe the 3 broke into the office and killed various employees to uses their ID to steal company information as well as plant surveillance devices. AUTOSYNC has adamantly stated that they believe it they are corporate spies but the police are currently treating it as external sabotage not an attack from another company. Currently, no one has a theory as to why AUTOSYNC's CEO was killed other than it was a calculated attack that took advantage of the chaos of the 3 assailants as an opening to attack, or someone looking for personal gain."

Chris clicked the TV off, "Speak off police."

He stood up and made his way to the door, he threw on a jacket and pressed on into the cold. After a 45 minute walk, Chris reached the hospital and walked through the front doors.

Approaching the counter, "Um... Hello."
The receptionist looked up, "Yes, hello."
"I'm looking to visit Chuck Prescott."
"Mhm... yes, and who are you?"
"I'm. Uh. Chris, Chris Cartwin."
They tapped away at a screen, "One moment, please. Please sit down over there."

Chris walked over to a sitting area, he felt a buzz on his phone. Pulling out his phone he had a notification, it was a report and its tag line read "Stephen Brandi, Urgent." But, as he went to tap it the receptionist called him over.

"Mr. Cartwin, you may head up. 13th floor, room 1387. Elevators are over there."
"Thank you."

Chris stepped onto a crowded elevator and it felt like an eternity to reach the 13th floor, it was suffocating. After 10 minutes he finally stepped off the elevator and started down the hall. Finally finding the room after another 10 minutes of searching, he tapped at the door and then entered.

Hesitantly Chris spoke into the dark room, "Hello? Chuck?"

It was quiet for some time, then after some grunts the room filled with light.

Chuck spoke with an almost slur and grogginess, "Whos there?"
"It's me, Chris."
"Oh, hey Chris," He pointed to a chair, "Come on over."
Chris shuffled over and sat down, "How are you feeling?"
"Like shit, but that's not important."
"I'm glad your ok Chuck."
"Shut it. Nows, not the time," He cleared his throat, "I need to show you something important."

Chuck shakily fumbled for his phone, he tapped at it then angled it to show Chris.

"Um? Ok? What am I looking at?"
Chuck grunted, "The Defrag satellite, we managed to find it's signal a while after we let you go. This was taken a day before it was supposed to self-destruct."
"What? It was going to self-destruct?"
"Yep, we set someone out there to look at it and the readings showed the AI Core was on verge of imploding. But..." Chuck swiped the screen, "this is it yesterday."
"It didn't shut down, and what's that?"
Chuck breathed deep and coughed, "That's what is important, the damn robot somehow overrode its orders to self destruct, and that," pointing at a long cylinder on the satellite, "Is some sort of weird weapon thing it's building."

Chuck paused and caught his breath, "It... the robot, was the one that killed AUTOSYNC's guy."
"How? Isn't that satellite in Uranus's orbit?"
Chuck nodded, "It is, here watch."

Chuck tapped again at the screen and a video of the satellite, the cylinder on its side opened into 3 parts and a long rod came out of it. It started to glow bright blue and sent out a thin blue line of light out of its tip, before after a few seconds stopping and closing. Chuck tapped away and pulled up a video of the CEO office, the man sitting at his desk when a sudden thin blue line pierced through the wall before disappearing in a matter of milliseconds, the man started to stand as the air itself seems to change. Everything just seemed to explode, the world was engulfed in flames and the camera cut to black.

"What was that?"
Chuck shook his head, "Don't know."
"Why are you showing me this? I'm not a cop."

One more Chuck tapped at the phone before showing it to Chris.

"Because for whatever reason we found your house's cords on the satellite as well as a date for 2 days from now."
"Wait you guys cracked the encryption?"
"Nope, it basically told us. It left the info unencrypted and it started to ping our servers."
Shivering as he spoke, "Why would it do that?"
"I'm not sure Chris."