Sorry guys, RL and a major plot snag caused me some trouble. I'm going to release a little fast to try to catch up. as always comment if you feel the need. The first part is suposed to be in a table, but I am an idiot so I can't get it to work. when i get a chance I will edit it as such.

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Chapter 5: Medulla over easy

Date: Sep, 12, 2597

Emma stared at her notes, lost in thought.

[Killer:

Hooded. - Scyth.- Reaper? Synth? No idea

Maid? No connection Elevator???

Death:

Synth and Original.- Investors.- Planned?

Money? No. Sport? No. Grudge? Maybe. Religious? Maybe

No connections

Crime scene:

No residue in bathroom. Emp? No. Hack? Too fast. Need more..

Next target:

Investors, other employees]

[ So, to summarize, we have no idea who is killing people, not much of an idea why, no idea how, and only a general idea who is next. I’ve seen brain teasers that started you off with more.]

Emma had watched the footage with Mitzy multiple times, and then they had gone to the crime scene itself.

The scene showed no signs of how the killer dispatched the woman. Neither found any evidence of EMP, microscopic bullets, external devices, external shock, or anything else they could think up.

All the cameras in the area were inspected and were shown to be working perfect. No signs of a local hack or tampering with any of the cameras could be found. It seemed that the unbelievable footage was real without any way to refute its validity.

After going over the scene multiple times to no avail they got a call from Kara. The engineers had finished disassembling the murdered synths so Kara needed them both back for a second inspection. Both Emma and Mitzy were feeling tired from the amount of stress all these mismatching pieces were putting them under. They hoped the synths might have at least a breadcrumb of a trail.

Kara welcomed them with a smile, ”Well, good to see you both still have some hair. Keke. I thought you might’ve pulled it all out by now.” The fact she was in a good enough mood to joke made Emma feel a little at ease.

“We haven’t been able to catch a break so please tell us you have something. I don’t think we can take any more questions.” Mitzy was reaching the end of her rope, but was hopeful seeing Kara’s demeanor.

“Good news, I know how our misses over here kicked the bucket.” After a moment for suspense, “Her brain fried itself!”

Emma and Mitzy stared blankly at Kara for a moment before glancing at each other then back to Kara as if they had misheard.

Emma slowly started, “Hey Kara, I know I’m tired so I don’t think I heard you correctly. Could you repeat that, because it sounded like you said her brain fried itself?”

“Ke ke ke. That’s exactly what I said. Crazy, right? First time I’ve seen someone be forced to commit brain suicide.” Kara crossed her arms as if it was an accomplishment that she needed to boast about.

Mitzy wasn’t sure why Kara seemed so happy but decided to just roll with it. “Well what does that mean for us?”

“For starters that means she wasn’t shot, stabbed, or poisoned.” Kara was glad her diagnosis was correct.

“Secondly, this means you guys didn’t miss anything either. We can narrow down the cause of death to either hacking or nano-bots attacking the subsystems of the synth. With the limited knowledge we have I will guess at hacking, but I have no idea how. “

Emma scratched her chin and pondered out loud, “We may not have a clue as to how, but it’s at least a start.”

At this point a wrong answer was still an answer for the duo. It was a starting point from which they could build on. Mitzy thought for a moment, and then replied, “OK, we should start checking out anyone who has a need to get rid of the couple and has hacking experience.”

Emma headed back to get a list of possible suspects from Ted and let Chief know they might have something. Mitzy met with Rhonda to request in depth analysis of the room which would take a few days to complete. Normally this wasn’t needed, but now that they had to check for signs of nano-bots they needed the analysis to catch something that small.

The pair then met back at Emma’s to put together a priority list of possible culprits and their various motives. This would let them check the most likely suspects first and could potentially save some time.

The most likely suspects were other investors looking to muscle in some more of the stock holdings, or possibly someone who was fired recently. Mitzy finally left after some time and went home a little early so they could have an early start on tomorrow.

She was feeling much better now that they had a trail, even if it was obscure and somewhat cold.