Arthur took one last drag from his cigarette before dropping the lit stub into an almost empty bottle of energy drink. He listened to the sizzle as the cigarette went out upon contact and floated to the top of the amber liquid, where it remained suspended along with a dozen other similar stubs.
He held his binoculars back up to his eyes and once more focussed his attention on the lit window of a distant high rise building. He had been watching his mark like a hawk for the past eight hours, and after such a long period of concentrated effort, even Arthur found his attention slipping, despite the cocktail of nicotine and caffeine pumping through his veins. Perhaps his mental fatigue was finally catching up to him.
"Stay focussed. Just a little more, and all of this will be over.." Arthur chastised himself, but his mind would not bend to the tyranny of his will. After a while, he once more found his thoughts drifting to the not so distant past, to when this nightmare began.
It was the night Arthur had celebrated his twentieth year of joining the Bureau. Although it did not seem like a long period of time, it was still enough for him to completely transform the fields of criminal psychology and behavioural science. Over his career, he had been involved in over 3000 cases in some way or form, and had brought thousands of violent criminals to justice, becoming a living legend within the Bureau and a much loved public figure outside of it. For his anniversary, many past acquaintances and colleagues had come to congratulate him, his old professor among them. The old man was by then an octogenarian, and upon thinking the man who had brought him into the Bureau, Arthur's mind now wandered to the distant past.
He did not have an easy start to life, forced to leave an abusive household and join the military as soon as he turned 16. However, he quickly found comfort in the tight schedule and rigid discipline that being a member of the Unified States Armed Forces entailed. His service branch of choice was the Air Force, and due to his high marks in all cognitive and reasoning tests, Arthur had earned the opportunity to receive an education during his enlistment.
After experimenting with many different courses over a number of years, he finally settled on to psychology, a subject he seemed to have a natural talent for. Arthur was not the only one to notice this, as his Professor was also greatly impressed by his senior thesis on the workings of the criminal mind. The man was a veteran of the National Bureau of Investigation, and as soon as Arthur had finished his enlistment, the old Professor came to him with a job offer, one that was too good to refuse, given the fact that he had a child on the way.
Arthur would go on to work as a Special Agent and Crime Scene Investigator at the Bureau for a few years, applying the methods discussed in his thesis to great success in the field. He had given birth to the field of criminal profiling, and after a few more years of research and practice working as a member of the Behavioural Science Unit, he would be asked to form and lead the Investigative Support Unit.
This was a team of elite forensic scientists who specialized in using behavioural psychology and crime scene evidence to build detailed profiles for criminals, allowing law enforcement to predict future behaviour and apprehend viable suspects. This team would become legends within the Bureau, being directly responsible for the arrest of numerous high-profile serial killers and rapists. They would come to be known as The Mindhunters, and Arthur as their leader, would earn the moniker The Mind Hunter.
This was the name by which he was addressed on the envelope that arrived that day, along with the other letters carrying well wishes from his colleagues who couldn't make it to his 20th Anniversary Party.
Once his guests had left, Arthur found himself alone in his office that night, reading through the messages he had received. One particular letter had captured his attention, for it was written using words cut out from a magazine rather than the beautiful cursive that adorned most of the others envelopes.
At first, he thought it was a prank, a joke in poor taste designed to elicit a dry laugh from him. But as he read through the letter in question, such notions were immediately put to rest.
The letter warmly congratulated him on his twenty years of service, and Arthur would be happy to receive such a message if the style was not strongly reminiscent of a past serial killer who would send taunting messages to the Bureau after each of his kills. He remembered this style well since it was the very first case he had worked on, and the first killer he had brought to justice using his methods.
When he checked the signature at the bottom to see who had sent it, Arthur only found a riddle.
"I see you, you see me; I raise my right, you raise your left. What am I?"
As a busy man, Arthur did not bother thinking too deeply about this. He moved on and was working his way through the remaining unopened envelopes when the telephone on his desk suddenly rang. On the other side of the line was the city's Police Superintendent, who spoke with a grave tone in his voice. There had been a murder, and as Arthur listened to the details, he realized the victim profile and murder method matched that of the first killer Arthur had hunted down twenty years ago, a man he was only just reminded of a few moments prior.
He quickly scrambled around his desk and pulled out the odd letter once more. This time, the answer to the riddle became immediately obvious to him. "A reflection" he had muttered out loud on that dreary night.
Over the following months, it became clear what his anonymous admirer had meant. More and more bodies had turned up in various cities across the east coast, and the details of these murders matched that of previous cases Arthur had solved. He had even identified the overlaying pattern; the murders were happening in the order of cases documented in the bestselling book he had authored discussing his most memorable cases.
Thus under great public scrutiny, Arthur along with his unit scrambled to gather and process all the evidence they could find to identify viable suspects. Arthur at this time knew how the next victim would be murdered as he remembered the related case quite vividly; the victim had looked remarkably similar to his late wife, who had passed away from cancer just a few months prior to this case landing on his desk. His emotional state and relentless drive during this investigation was what first earned him public interest, and it was this public interest that would eventually invite upon him his greatest tragedy.
The Bureau was nowhere close to tracking down this Ultimate Copycat when Arthur received news of the latest victim, and his world was turned upside down. The latest body that turned up was of his very own daughter, who was attending university a few states away. Ever since his wife had passed, she was all he had left, and she had grown up to resemble her beautiful mother.. and by extension, the woman who was the victim of the seventh murder discussed in his book. The killer had decided to make it personal by taking away from him the only family he had left.
The next few years passed by in a blur as Arthur worked like a man possessed to hunt down this demon who made a mockery of his very existence. He was removed from his position in the Bureau and forced into early retirement due to his personal involvement in the case, but he was able to maintain access to the case files due to a trusted subordinate taking over his role.
Following the copycat's lead, more killers had decided to strike while the iron was hot, replicating past murders Arthur had solved, muddying the waters and making it much harder for him to track down his true prey. But Arthur was not discouraged by this, as his life now had a singular purpose. Perhaps this was what his nemesis wanted all along: his total and undivided attention, free from all other responsibilities and distractions he had as a leading member of the Bureau.
Arthur made use of every single piece of evidence he could get his hands on; crime scene photographs, witness statements, telephone records, travel schedules, past cases, as well as his deep understanding of behavioural psychology. In the process, he had tracked down and eliminated many false positives, taking down many opportunistic killers who had used the cover provided by the Copycat to commit their own murders.
It had been over four years since his daughter's death, and many more young men and women had since lost their lives to this lunatic; but with each kill, Arthur gathered more evidence and painted a better picture of his target. Like almost all serial killers, the Copycat had grown overconfident in his ability, and had become sloppy. Arthur had now reduced his number of viable suspects to three, and he had already stalked one of them a few weeks prior, eliminating them from his list as a false lead. Tonight he was tracking his second target.
Arthur was broken out of his thoughts when the light went off in the window he was observing. He immediately stood up and packed his equipment away, stashing his notebook and binoculars into his backpack, which he then slung over his shoulder.
He picked up the nearby bottle of energy drink and chugged down its remaining liquid content despite the cigarette ash that was mixed in. Arthur then threw the empty bottle to the floor before running out of the dingy apartment he had just recently rented without even bothering to close the door behind him. He rushed down a few flights of stairs, and exited out the back door of his building into the streets below.
He was in remarkable shape for a man in his late 40s, having chosen to maintain the discipline and physical standards that were engrained into him during his time in the military. He had enlisted during the height of the cold war, which had lasted his entire life and only just recently ended.
He saw the results of this development as he left the narrow back street and entered the main road, taking in the sea of half drunk pedestrians who still waddled about the city three hours past midnight.
With the threat of nuclear Armageddon no longer hanging over their heads, the mood was jubilant, and people had come out in droves to celebrate the arrival of the new year. But Arthur did not share in their enthusiasm; he knew there was a killer on the loose, and based on the profile he had created, they were likely to go on the prowl tonight.
He could have shared this information with the Bureau, but had decided against it. Arthur had a personal score to settle with his target; the Copycat was not the only one on the hunt this cold winter night.
Arthur made his way through the crowds, his eyes fixed on the entrance to a building two blocks down the road, the same building he had been watching all this time. He spotted a well-dressed young man walking out of the double doors that led into the lobby, and hailing one of the taxis that were frequenting the streets, looking to ferry the drunk partygoers home. Despite the distance, Arthur confirmed that the appearance of this young man matched the description of the person he was looking for.
He quickly tried to hail a cab of his own, but failed to find one on the road nearby. Arthur scanned his surroundings and spotted a taxi that had stopped ahead of him, with a drunk couple standing outside its open window, arguing with the driver. He walked up to the cab and opened the door to the passenger seats, stepping inside and closing the door shut behind him as he sat down. The driver turned around to regard him, looking clearly agitated, and was about to say something when Arthur pulled out a hundred-dollar bill.
"Drive." he said.
Seeing no reason to reject the generous offer, the driver quickly took the cash, and shifted his car into first gear, accelerating away from the drunk couple who stared at the departing cab in disbelief.
"Where to?" the cabby asked as he joined the traffic on the main road. He adjusted his rear-view mirror to get a better look at his odd passenger. The man had a fierce look on his face as he stared straight ahead, his steel grey eyes gleaming in the darkened interior of the cab. His handsome but weathered face was topped with black hair, his temples dusted with grey, which along with his salt and pepper beard gave him a dignified look.
"Don't know. Just want to get away from here. Keep driving and I'll tell you which way to turn." The man said in a gruff voice.
The cabby thought this was odd, but he had already earned enough from this one customer to end his shift early tonight. Hoping the man would also give him a generous tip, he decided not to complain and simply followed the instructions given to him. He did not notice that the man's eyes were fixated on another cab just a few cars ahead of their own.