I woke up thinking about the events that had had happened yesterday. It all went so fast for my mind to process it, but I must not let it get to me. I sat in my office looking at my next cases, next to a newspaper that was about the dead boy last night, that had been piled up when I was gone. There were only three, and under all of the files, there was a note from Jane that said "Cover your ears"
I had no idea what she meant by that until I heard the boss singing Take On Me by A-ha.
"Take on me" He sang relaxed. I still wanted to hear his singing.
"Take me on" He went higher, not bad. It could use more emotion.
"I'll be gone" He sang with confidence, I was worried I might go deaf after this.
"In a day or TWO!!!" He screamed the last note and literally made my right ear ring like a bell and it was long. I ignored what my bleeding ears have just witnessed and looked upon my cases, each had an adress on the bottom right;
Murder,
Murder,
Murder or suicide?
I decided to look up the last one. My right ear finally stopped ringing.
I called for Jane who also had three new cases;
Murder,
Missing cat,
Posessed roommate, likes pineapple on pizza
"Yeah, I think you're just shit!" She cried on the phone. "Liking pineapple on pizza isn't a bad thing. It's not even bad, people just tell you to hate it. You decide what you like or what you don't like, not other people! Now go stand on the corner of the wall and think about what you've done!" She slammed the phone aggressively. "Oh right, it's not a telephone!" She picked it up again to say "For shame!" and hung up. "Oh hi, William! Case closed!" She cheered.
"Oh cool" I implied "I have a case as well. Murder or suicide?"
"Let's go!" She said "I have a new car, it's a cadillac and it's waiting outside, waiting to get destroyed!"
"That's a hearse" I pointed out after stepping outside.
"No it's not. If it was then I would store it in my garage never to be used, and worship it"
When we opened the doors only the driver seat was fixed and the passenger seat missing.
"Where am I gonna sit?" I asked
"Oh about that, you're gonna have to lie down on the cute vampire bed on the back"
"You mean the coffin?"
"Oh, of course, thanks for reminding me what it was called!"
"Anyway, this is the location of the murder" I handed her the case file and lied down in the coffin on the back. It felt she drove in a hurry. I was not surprised, she was willing to destroy the car like she did with the previous cars she used, which includes mine.
"Slow down!" I cried "If I die in here, atleast they don't need to move my body"
We reached our destination in one piece.
When I got out of the hearse, there were people with hats off paying condolences who gasped at my appearance as if they had seen a zombie.
"Don't worry" I said "I'm not gonna eat any of your brains because you have none"
They all ran away anyway. I walked to the crime scene with my friend.
"Peter!" Jane called a man whom I never met "Lobg time no see! Do you remember me? We used to work together?"
"Oh yeah" he said, his eyes widened as if he was frightened. He was shorter than me but taller than Jane and wore a blue cap.
"This is my friend and detective companion, William Habitat, but you may call him 'Defective' instead of 'Detective' ha!" she teased.
"That's very funny" I said without laughing "Who is this?"
"I'm detective Peter Rutherford" he introduced. "From a different- "
"Oh cool, Do you have a sibling named Nuclear Physics?"
Jane snorted
"What?" asked Peter "I never- "
"Nevermind, you're too stupid, come on!"
Peter, Jane, and I continued to enter the house to examine the newly found dead body of a young man in house clothes. No blood.
"Before you arrived" said Peter "I already examined the body and found something interesting" He pulled out of his pocket a plastic bag of arcade tickets.
"And you found this interesting because?" I asked
"Well, He may be old, but I deduce that he loved to play video games and would go to the arcade everytime he gets stressed out, or just wanted to have fun"
"Okay, what else did you find?"
"Nothing"
"Let me examine the damn body! No wait, actually, I wanna see how Jane does it"
"With pleasure" said Jane as she continued to do so. I asked Peter if they have identified the man.
"His name was David McCoy" said Peter "Twenty-five years-old and never have been in any romantic relationship"
"RelationSHIT" I implied "Please continue"
"Watch your language, asshole! Anyway, he- " and so he continued on and on even when my attention accidentally shifted away and into my imagination preventing all the important information from getting into my mind. I was back at the events from yesterday morning to last night and so I stood without blinking.
"The boy was a slave" said I
"What?" asked Peter
"Nothing, the boa's sleeve is a great way to say thank you, arigatou, muchas gracias, vodka soda, coca-cola for the information. Now I must venture forth!" I walked to Jane asking what she had deduced but only the important ones.
"The last thing he ate" said she "Was a chocolate pretzel. As you can see from his sleeve there are tiny bits of pieces fallen from the pretzel as he took several bites"
"And the cause of death?" asked I
"Obviously poisoned, the man has no blood coming out and the state of his body is not weak enough for a heart attack"
"That doesn't mean he couldn't have had one. Peter, please come with us, take us to the arcade"
Peter used his car, a black camaro with me riding shotgun. Jane used her hearse. Upon arriving, Jane's hearse was still in the same condition as it was when we got to the crime scene.
The arcade was full of young people, there were more men than women, but everybody seemed to be having a great time except for this one lad at the crane game who started shaking the machine before getting kicked out.
"Anyone got any money?" asked I
"Did you tell me to take you over here so you can play?" asked Peter. "Do I have to remind you that there's a dead man out there?!"
"No, but any of these kids might challenge us to give their answer"
"Good point" he gave Jane and I a handful of coins which we used to buy tokens. "Just be careful not to get hurt by anyone or anything"
"Yes" Jane said before the two of us ran to get some answers.
"Hey hey, don't run!" yelled Peter.
We approached a young girl playing Polybius
"What's up, homie?" I greeted. She gave me a weird look.
"We don't use street talk" she said. "Why'd you think we use street talk?" her voice was pale and emotionless.
I did not answer the question
"Do you know anyone named David McCoy?"
"Yeah, he treats the kids around here, he's pretty popular"
"Then you can answer our questions!"
"No"
"Why?"
"Because I don't feel like it" her tears started falling down.
"Hey, what's wrong?" asked Jane.
"There is a woman crying and people are stalking me out of the corner of my eyes. But when I turn to look they're not there. Please make them stop!"
A man, wearing orange with red stripes, who appeared to be working for the arcade closed the young girl's eyes and pulled gently her away.
"I thought we got rid of this game!" cried he "It's not even supposed to exist! Little girl, what's your name? where are your parents?"
The girl did not answer.
"We got another one! Medic!"
Jane and I watched as the little girl got taken away in an ambulance.
"Oh shit, of course!" Peter emerged from behind. "This game!"
"What about it?" I asked
"Didn't think the urban legend was true. Polybius is a mysterious arcade game that was so popular people would line up, however, those who played the game claimed to have heard a woman crying and grotesque faces appearing out of the corner of their eye. They also claimed to have nightmares, experienced headaches, nausea, blackouts or develop amnesia. Some even committed suicide. And if you look at the name of the company that created it on the bottom of the screen, 'Sinneslöschen' which is German for 'Sense Deletion' "
After he finished talking two men in suits appeared to take the game away.
"Why would they create this evil thing?" Jane sank her head on her hands.
"Nevermind that, the real question is why is it here? They only released this in a few suburbs of Portland, Oregon"
"What if this was the last game Dave played before his death?" I suggested. Peter and my friend paused before agreeing with me.
"Are there security cameras here?" Peter asked, looking around the ceiling and corners. He pointed one that was facing directly where we stood. I smiled for it and raised my index and middle finger up. Jane slapped my hand away. We walked to the door leading to the security room.
"You can't be here!" one of the guards implied trying to take us away. We raised our badges and the guard walked away. The man behind the camera monitors looked half-british and japanese.
"Nani?!" he cried.
"Hello there" I said "My name is William, this is Peter, and my friend Jane. But you may call us the three stooges"
"My God!" Jane cried "Your brain dates further back than your age! Let me handle this. I only know a few japanese words but i'll try" she heroically stood between me and Peter. "Do you speak English?"
The man did not answer.
"I don't think he does" Peter implied
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah"
I stood in silence not telling him that I spoke two other languages other than English. Japanese was one of them. I wanted to see how she would handle the situation.
"Well" she said "Let me ask you in a language you can understand. Anata wa supeaku een-gee-ee-shu desu ka?!"
Still no answer. The fact that she yelled "Anata" at him was actually rude.
"Nanda?" the man asked
"English! Speak! Anata!" still no answer. "Nope, he does not"
"Actually" I interrupted "He can. The Newspaper on his desk is in English and the manual is also written in English. This whole arcade is in English, so he would need to speak English to get this job"
"Oh, you motherfucker" she cried.
"I'm half-british and half-japanese" the man said in a british accent. Jane, frustrated, snapped on the man.
"Oh, so you think you're so damn cool doing that?" she yelled "Well well well, mate" her accent went a bit too british "Oi, nani, mate?! Omae wa mou bloody shindeiru! Wanker-imasu ka? Twat-tebayo!?"
I shut her mouth and pulled her back "I think you're starting to appear a bit racist"