As they left the office, Iris noticed there was no one at the front desk. She thought it odd but did not ask why.
They drove over to the courthouse; Iris offered to drive and Olivia suggested Roy decline that offer, so it took a while. Once they were there, Roy parked and turned to Iris. "Kronos, stay here until ten minutes have passed. Ideally, step through the door at precisely 10:33:16. I have brought something with me and will move it about the courtroom during that time, and have requested the prosecution do the same. You will perform Timeline and make it move the path it once had; that should be sufficient to prove that I am not feeding you information to create."
"Got it."
He left.
Kairos crawled on Iris's chest as she leaned back to Olivia. "It's a piece of paper with his name written on it backwards in pencil, then erased, then written in pen, then struck out eight times thirty three minutes, twenty seconds and five hundred nanoseconds ago."
"Well, just make sure you look surprised."
Iris entered the room at 10:33:16 and demonstrated Timeline, along with a few other usages of her ability. It was allowed on a temporary basis due to the host nature of the case, though testimony from Kate would be needed to verify that it could not tamper with evidence.
From there Roy gave them a large envelope. "Don't lose this. It has all information pertaining to the case that I thought you might find relevant; autopsy reports, crime scene photos, the locations of the murders. Thomas's address is also enclosed; his mother has consented to a Timeline performed on the property, although I would warn her before doing so."
"I'm guessing we're not allowed to Timeline anywhere we want."
He laughed. "Ah, the typical student sense of-... er, no. No, you are not. Private property will require a search warrant. Call me, and I will handle those proceedings."
Iris sighed. "Alright."
"However, there may still be witnesses in those areas. I would suggest not questioning them with your badges visible; the judge may consider a visible student as evidence alone of witness intimidation."
"Funny how that never gets applied to cops." said Olivia.
"Unfortunately, for all the flaws of civilian police, they are far deeper embedded into society than students and quite the troublesome infestation to uproot." He shook his head. "As you might have already picked up, I share your dislike of the police, though mine is likely even deeper than your's."
"You sure about that?" said Olivia.
"Think of my position where I am forced to obey them and see those who I know to be innocent have their lives ruined on their false testimony. The life of a student is not easy, but it certainly seems one without restriction or structure."
"Bit of unstructured freedom isn't necessarily what people should have, though." said Iris. "I've seen students destroy themselves far deeper than any civilian could."
"I will have to take your word on it. Yet, regardless, I saw how the country treated your President Swarm: the media despised her, both when she was a teenager and when she stood before them as an adult woman, because she is a daughter who loves her *criminal* father and refuses to scorn him at the behest of journalists. Few in this country can be like her, unfortunately, and fewer choose to be." he said. "Lastly, I have left something for you in the trunk. I presume with your ability, you will have no issue unlocking it or understanding what it is for."
Iris checked the trunk, unlocking it with Kairos. There was a 360-degree video camera in it. "For Timeline."
"Correct. Set it up whenever you use Timeline; it has 256GB of storage. It belongs to the investigator you're temporarily replacing."
Roy drove them back to his office where Iris's truck was parked, and they parted there.
Iris checked over the envelope. There was a few stops Roy deemed 'optional': the four families of the four dead girls, deemed optional for reasons you will see. It was on the way to one of the murders, and so Iris & Olivia stopped by.
Iris knocked at the door. A man answered and was clearly already agitated. "What? What do you want?"
"We're investigating the murder of your daughter."
"Who are you, the police?"
Iris could not lie. "No."
"Then who are you with?"
"Roy Kaplan, the defense."
"You people have some goddamn nerve coming here. I'm not going to speak one word to you."
"We're just ensuring a thorough investigation is done, sir." said Iris (the word like steaming turds on her tongue).
"What the fuck else is there to investigate? They saw that monster you want to get off pissing on her dead body. I wouldn't even speak to you if you actually were dressed like actual investigators, but both of you show up to my doorstep dressed like a fucking circus. Boy, I fucking hope you never have to bury a member of your own family, or maybe it'll teach you a little empathy."
Iris remembered Thomas, and she remained a presence of steel. "I take it you wouldn't be up for a few questions."
"Get the hell out!"
Iris shrugged, turned and left with Olivia. "Beach next." She was rushing, but it was better she be allowed to do so: she could outmove her emotions. She was in the truck before Olivia, and as she turned to Olivia and saw her still making her way to the vehicle, she had an urge to yell at her, yet stifled it.
She felt guilty afterwards, and foolish. Though it had lowered in recent weeks, still in her was the need to attempt to sabotage her own personal relationships so that she might construct a barrier against the world; if she could convince herself that she did not like anyone then no longer would she need to be liked. She had been trying to allow Olivia more into herself recently, even as she was unsure how her self could be summed.
She drove to the closest beach; one of the bodies had washed up on its shore, though it had not been dumped there. She cross-referenced the location with the crime scene photos, then crouched down at the shore. "Going down. Stay ashore and I'll call you when I find out where she was dumped."
She swam into the water, dove around where the body was found, then reverted through every state of the water until a visible hole opened up in the sea. She followed it back up the path it once floated until she was up the feeding river, by a line of scattered businesses. She called Olivia to her location, drying off her clothes by recalling her host aura and reverting them unwet.
Iris crouched down to focus. "Just remember that in an hour, there might be a young girl's corpse here. Don't know what condition it might be in, but it'll be stamped at the moment of death."
Iris set up the 360 camera, turned its audio off (as Timeline was silent regardless) and began recording. Kairos crawled off from her and began its web underneath the cover of clouds; Olivia stood outside to watch for any enemy host. Afterwards Iris called Olivia back in and played the Timeline forward from -30 days.
A little girl's corpse entered, carried by a host aura. It had been sliced in several places, but they viewed the corpse with only a moral disgust rather than physical. Olivia in particular seemed affected by it. Before the corpse was dumped into the river, Iris grabbed it and laid it on the ground.
Olivia crouched beside her. "Check those cuts."
Iris began peeling its cuts open. "Unnaturally precise. Completely cleaved through the lower tissue... had to have been the Revenant." She frowned as she realized the corpse was wearing two layers of jackets. Something was off. "Olivia, check the crime scene photo?"
"This one?" Olivia handed it to her. "…oh shit."
"She's wearing a blue jacket, and yet stamped at death... red jacket." Iris reverted the Timeline: she was wearing it when she entered. "It's oversized. Host must've made her wear it."
"Why?"
Iris pulled the blue jacket off from her. A minute shift occured in it and she sighed relieved. "Made her wear it after death. You know what I can do with this, don't you?"
Olivia grinned. "Can you?"
Iris reverted it pre-death, and as it was not part of the death stamp, it retook the path it had walked in life. "You have no idea how satisfying this feels."
It moved along the riverfront, and they ran after it. It soon led them to an apartment parking lot, then up a few floors, until it pressed against a locked door. Iris frowned. "It's from there."
"We need a search warrant, remember?"
"Search warrant." muttered Iris. "God damnit. A fucking search warrant. Imagine that."
Olivia looked around and saw no one. "Iris, scan for cameras."
Kairos scanned.
"Scan inside."
Kairos scanned inside and seemingly saw nothing it could not manipulate; all objects were level under the million eyes.
"Anything?"
"No."
Baal vomited and the door corroded away. She shoved Iris into the apartment. "Repair the door and Timeline. I'll call you if anyone is coming."
It was a typical small shitty apartment with a bedroom & bathroom: no further words are needed, given you have likely already pasted your own small shitty apartment into this description.
Iris crouched down to Timeline. Afterwards she texted Olivia telling her Timeline was done, and after Olivia stepped inside, she kept a Kairos strand on the door that permanently locked it.
As Iris began playing from -30 days forward and the blue jacket left her hand, she frowned. A set of clothes floated through the usual pattern of a slothful American; they returned from a job where they presumably sat all day, too tired to do else but lay down on the couch, and occasionally crawl to bed to sleep there before another morning of sitting work. She detected no host aura, nor the presence of a Revenant, and she paused the Timeline at the time the girl's body washed ashore, where the civilian clothes lay discarded at the side of the bed (but his boxers).
"Olivia, there isn't a host aura here."
Olivia glanced at the clothes. "You know, if you sped up the Timeline until about negative five minutes, you could really embarrass him."
"I couldn't embarrass him any more than coming home to this apartment does already." Iris sighed. "You know, one thing I noticed was that the girl was already being carried by the time he brought her to that river. And that despite the killer being a host, he left the body mostly intact; he could've sliced her into far thinner pieces and dumped her gradually. So, why?"
"To frame this guy."
"Right." Iris frowned. "I'd like to see if we could talk to him, but I suspect he won't tell us much."
She sped through the Timeline the day of the murder; a host aura had visited, and while the other man was in the bathroom, had stolen the blue jacket from the bedroom. Iris paused, then nodded as she swiped the civilian man's phone off the table. "Just need to check who-"
"Iris, you can't use that as evidence until we're allowed to use the first link."
"…fuck." Iris threw it at the wall, then repaired it, then threw it again. "Can't even take food from his fridge."
"Starting to see why you had anger issues."
"Have."
"You said it, not me."
She called up Roy. "Hi, Roy. I already found an inconsistency with the crime scene photos you gave us. You remember how Timeline stamps corpses at time of death? The girl who washed ashore was wearing a blue jacket in the photo. But she died wearing a red jacket."
"Are you able to track the source of the blue jacket?"
"Yes, I reverted it back to the apartment it's in, but I haven't entered it yet. I was hoping I could get a search warrant, or... whatever it is I need."
"...hmm. Unfortunately, it's unlikely I could obtain a search warrant for you on such premises, given your corpse death stamp is a rather... difficult to understand aspect of Timeline. I can certainly try regardless, but I would find a legal alternative if possible."
Iris sighed. "I suppose so."
"Have you visited the other locations of the bodies yet?"
"Not yet. I'm going to see if I can talk to the man who lives there instead."
"Review your sheet if you need guidance. Goodbye."
"Bye."
Iris hung up, and after reverting the mirrors to verify the man's appearance, walked out of Timeline. They waited in shifts out in the parking lot; it was a few hours before the man presumably got off work, parked, then began walking home. Olivia approached him first, and Iris watched.
Whatever it was Olivia said, he was interested. She was not above using her sexual appeal for investigation or otherwise, though Iris could tell Olivia did it with as much pleasure as eating a plate of turds when it came to men.
"God, you are one sexy bitch, you know that?"
"Yes, men shout that at me every day."
"Whuzzat?"
Olivia rolled her eyes and pulled out the blue jacket from behind herself. "Do you know anything about this?"
"Hey, where did you get that? Where'd you get that?"
"Off a little girl who was murdered. Someone tried to frame you with it."
He tried to pull it from her and that Olivia did not budge revealed she was a host: he was confused, then frightened, then before he could shout for help the air was pulled from his lungs; Iris winced as she ran over. "Damn it, let's just go."
She pulled Olivia back, and noted that her own frustration that this line of questioning was closed seemed not replicated upon Olivia. Olivia was annoyed, but at the man, not the failure, and she shouted back: "Next time, don't assume every woman who approaches you is trying to fuck you, you fucking limp-dick creep!"
He was hunched over, but shouted back: "I-I didn't want to fuck you anyway!"
'Bullshit.' thought Iris, then mentally added that half the lesbians around campus would sell their own sisters into sexual slavery for the chance.
Granted, Olivia was not choosy on who she shared beds with: she would usually do a lonely lesbian if asked. She had a deeper sense of empathy and emotion than Iris, which Iris often felt was a weakness; she had once overheard Olivia, nearly in tears, leaving several messages on a civilian woman's phone. Sex had usually been Olivia's method for love -- even when she did not care to have it, she would if she thought it might bring her later rewards, be they romantic or having things bought for her.
But this was what passed for romantics in their home. Iris had not brought anyone home nor slept with any other student since Amelie, and recently she had thought to swear off relationships altogether; her relationships had never gone very well and she usually tried to convince herself she did not need one.
Iris sighed, then checked the next death location. The girl had been hung from a public park tree, and after Iris Timelined it, the host aura carried the girl's mangled corpse and roped her up. The thought grazed Iris's mind that although she had initially suspected such a gruesome murderer was male, the majority of those who killed children were their own mothers.
She decided not to bring this up with Olivia; she had noticed her castigation usually only swung one way as far as gender was concerned. Whenever Olivia saw a man commiting a crime, she saw not another human but a man, which she always extrapolated out to the man general.
Iris had already Timelined twice today, and she generally preferred to not strain herself further than that. She returned with Olivia to their hotel room, washed up in the shower, then walked in to see Olivia watching television. She looked over and saw it was a nightly news report about the recent murders: a shirtless, scowling picture of Thomas was onscreen.
"-the man that police have claimed has confessed to being the Penfort Butcher, and who will stand trial, charged of murdering three girls as young as five years old. Thomas is a former host, and it is easy to imagine how he may have, using his Revenant, kidnapped girls away from their homes, mutilated their bodies, then left them in agonizing pain as he dumped their bodies across town. With me is a psychologist who has consulted on over a hundred criminal cases, Dr. Kevin Musser."
"Thanks for having me."
"Now, Dr. Musser, before we went on the air, you were discussing your personal opinion on what causes a person to do such heinous crimes."
"Yes, that's correct. In my experience with cases like this, especially regarding a murderer who targets very young children, it can often be traced back to some sort of failure to attach as a child. Sometimes, it can be a missing father figure. An abusive mother or lack of proper guidance at home. In essence, they kill as an attempt to reclaim the childhood that they felt they were denied. That's in keeping with the current state of psychological science."
"But there are no real feelings of guilt for what they have done, is that correct?"
"Partially, yes. There's sometimes flashes of what we might call morality, where they can just briefly realize the gravity of what they have done. I may be jumping ahead a bit, but regarding the confession... That may very well be what occured here. I've even consulted on cases where the killer will confess, and then later attempts to backtrack as a way of dealing with their extreme guilt. They find that they can't carry such a terrible sin around on their conscience, if only for brief moments."
"But that does bring us to Thomas's defense. His lawyer, Roy Kaplan, does claim that his client is innocent and that the confession was coerced. Unfortunately, he declined to give any further comment and refused to come on our show. But is there any validity to that, potentially?"
"I personally would find that very hard to believe. I certainly won't say that it's never happened -- you accidentally get caught in a lie, and make it worse trying to cover it up -- but for a crime of such magnitude... no. I would find that very hard to believe."
"Yes, Marcus, go ahead."
"But every defense lawyer says their client is innocent! I mean, he's not going to go out and say that his client is guilty, throw away the key and lock him up for good, right? I mean, this would be the biggest case of this guy's career. Nobody had heard of him before he came to the defense of this Thomas."
"And that's most likely because no one else would."
"There may even be some familial connection there, as well."
"Of course! The facts are that there's eyewitness testimony placing him right next to where one of the little girl's bodies were dumped, right about the same time that she was killed, and after they arrest him on suspicion of drug usage, he suddenly confesses to these horrific murders."
Iris frowned. "Mute it, please."
"I'd rather shut it off."
Baal vomited on the television and it fizzed smoky images.
"First time I'm hearing about kidnapping." said Iris. "That indicates he took them from their homes."
"Sure would be nice if they didn't scream at you as soon as they answered the door."
"They're grieving. I can't blame them for that sort of reaction: not in the main."
Olivia sensed Iris was extrapolating her own experience onto their's, but she was not sure what to say. Their discussion shriveled.
It was not an uncommon occurrence between the two: by now Olivia had learned that Iris wanted no spectators to her emotion, and if she were to extend over sympathy then Iris would find it degrading. Though she cared deeply for Iris, this had made deeper connection difficult: she had needed to learn what advice and care she could give, without causing Iris's inner consciousness to stiffen against such understanding and resent its bearer. Time would slowly remedy this, even if the pace was not to Olivia's liking.
The paradox of Iris's grief and trauma was that contained within her was still that wish to return to her prior attachments with Amelie & Natasha, even as she understood both were impossible now. To Iris these internal habits apprpached her like an alien atmosphere; even when she did not feel it directly she paid mute tribute to that great natural force in her actions. Easy, detached sexual encounters had once numbed this tight internal morass, and yet whenever she was to remember what she had shared with Amelie, she was uncertain if what she had felt could be evoked again or if she even wished it to be. There was a need for extension, to continue the process of reaching out, under these newly made limits underneath which she was obligated to live, and it was often Olivia who she felt safest reaching towards.
And however determined by proximity rather than acumen it was, Olivia was a good choice for Iris; Olivia felt things deeply and was naturally kind, even at the expense to herself. Since Natasha had abandoned her and less & less did her civilian friends return her messages, she had needed someone to care for, subtly as she was forced to express it with Iris. But she had always had a difficult time rejecting others and hated to disappoint them.
It should be no surprise to say that Olivia envied Iris's ability to manage her own loneliness. She was herself, regardless of what it had led her to previously. This was simply not how Olivia herself was wired, much to her detriment. She had fantasies of romantic and lesbian love, and given her physical beauty, this would not seem so unattainable, save for one factor; the distorted views of others.
Though there are many problems in a life at the lower fringe of beauty or attention, so too is there an overload of attention and overimbuement at the upper fringe; this was where Olivia was. She was desired not for herself, but in what it would mean for others' views of themselves, to see the envy others would have of walling around with such a babe, so that they could think themselves the type enviable. It was the worst of humanity, to Olivia's eyes; not for how they treated her, but that it was their own distorted views of themselves at the core of their insecurities. Their images of themselves were gauged wholly against the world of another, and no matter their personal flaws, somehow, they had convinced themselves that it could be muted if only they had a beautiful girlfriend.
Natasha had lacked this distorted view. Her physical strength and stature had acted as an objectification of safety against the world; many times she had prevented emotional harm by the melding of herself into her physique, regardless of the superficiality of such esteem. Unlike Iris, the obstacles in her own life had been self-created; she had accused no one of fucking up her life but herself.
It was this penchant for poor decisions that Olivia had hoped she might fix in Natasha. Opportunities came easily to Natasha around campus; women would touch her, talk to her, invite her over on such flimsy pretense, and Olivia hated how Natasha invited this manner of treatment in her dress & behavior. Though she herself had thought to use Natasha, selflessly and not, she felt used by Natasha, even as there lacked any reason but the treatment Natasha herself forcibly received.
And yet it was this dilemma which Olivia has always felt in investment; she chose others for that which made them different from others, and yet she distrusted them, felt forced to steady them towards the traits she had originally chosen them for, and away from the most arbitrary of behaviors that lacked any explanation but for the confluence of factors and epiphenomenon of life.