Sins Loom: The Unwilling Weaver

Ed wakes up earlier than usual, unprompted by Buddie’s regular greeting. Thinking about last night, he worries about how he should react when he sees her. What should I say? Do I talk about yesterday, or do I just continue on like any other day? God, I’m not good at this kind of stuff. I suck at interacting with people.

Noticing that Ed is awake early, Buddie decides to greet him. “Good morning, Ed.”

“Oh, morning Buddie.” Buddie’s voice knocks Ed out of his self-loathing. Everything will be fine. For some reason she likes me, so I should just go with whatever comes naturally to me at the time. Having settled that, he sits down to have breakfast. It is only then that he realises that he woke up before Buddie said anything. “How long do I have until work?”

“You have an hour and a half.” Buddie says.

Looks like I didn’t wake up too early, that’s good. Ed takes his time enjoying his breakfast when he notices something sitting on the TV unit. What is that? Getting closer he sees that it’s a small booklet with the word ‘Josephine’ written on it.

Curious, he picks it up and flicks to the first page, only for the TV to turn on. On it, he sees Josephine sleeping in the classroom, with Grace quietly sneaking up behind her. He freezes for a moment, allowing the footage to continue, with Grace pouring the water bottle on Josephine. He shakes himself back into action upon watching Grace effortlessly lift Josephine off the ground. He shuts the book, and the screen fades to black.

“...the highlights of each day will be sent to your apartment, Ed...” Buddie’s words from yesterday play in his mind. This booklet must be what he was talking about. It will show me everything that happened to her... maybe I should just put this back down. Placing it back on the unit, he goes back to his half-finished breakfast. Finishing it off, he lazes around his apartment for a while before getting ready for work.

With half an hour to go, he steps through the door. As Usual, Zara is not there, so he absentmindedly looks around the room to fill in the time.

“BOO!” While he’s not paying attention, Zara sneaks up behind him, popping her head over his shoulder.

His breath catches slightly due to the sudden loud noise, but he relaxes when he sees that it’s Zara. “Morning Zara, how did you sleep?”

She plops down in her chair, spinning around to face him. “Like a baby. That bed is amazing.”

Ed lets out a short laugh. “It’s already been a few days; I don’t think we need to talk about how good the beds are here. By the way, the first video for Josephine has shown up at my place.”

She immediately pulls herself closer to Ed, excited. “Really? Come on, let’s go watch it right now.”

Ed looks at the screen and sees that the file has already appeared. “Hold your horses a little. We have plenty of time to look at it later. Right now, we have to do our jobs.” He says while pointing.

She immediately jumps into her work, shaking with anticipation to watch the video. Seeing this, Ed also jumps into his work.

Name: Brigid Dolan

Age: 27

Occupation: delivery driver

Biography: Born to parents Oscar and Shay Dolan, Brigid grew up in a working-class family. After graduating from high school, she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life, so she coasted from job to job for a few years. She eventually settled on being a delivery driver... She continued to live with her family in order to help support her parents, but life grew difficult when her father was unceremoniously laid off. She picked up longer and longer hours in order to take care of them, but this just made her more stressed and exhausted as the days went by... She grew delusional, believing that her father’s former boss was deliberately targeting them. She gathered more and more information that further convinced her already tired mind... As revenge, she decided to kidnap the man’s daughter and hold her for ransom... not long after, she put this plan into action, kidnapping the child while she was on her morning delivery route. She is currently hiding out of town at an abandoned old warehouse, holding a gun to the child’s head while forcing the girl to call her father...

-End of Document-

The crime is happening right now? If I'm fast enough I could potentially save the girl. It’s clear that Brigid is not doing well mentally, and I don’t trust her enough to not fire the gun. Someone could get hurt. “We need to be quick with this one Buddie. A child’s life is at stake right now.” Ed opens up the app and quickly gets to work. “Put her in place of the child being kidnapped. I want her to start off in the truck tied up just like the child was. The truck will eventually stop at the warehouse, where she will be held at gunpoint by an identical copy of herself.” Ed pauses, allowing all of this to be added to the screen. “Buddie, since we know what is currently happening, does that mean we have someone watching this play out right now?”

“Yes, that is correct.”

“Okay. Does she seem likely to kill the hostage?”

“As of right now, it is a less than twenty percent chance that she will kill the hostage. However, if she feels threatened, the father shows up with protection, or the girl tries but fails to escape, then the chance of her firing the gun will drastically increase.”

I need to get this done before any changes happen. “Keep a watchful eye on the situation. In my project, if one of those situations occurs, then that will be what kills her. I’m done, so you can get started immediately.” As the company gets to work on the project, Ed sits there nervously, hoping that the child is left unharmed.

~

On Zara’s side, the sinner she got was a hitman that has killed many people. He’s a very bad guy, I don’t have to be lenient with him... There doesn’t seem to be a consistent way in which he kills people, so I can’t make a trap out of that. Maybe I can get something from how he hides the bodies? She looks through the information given to her once more and finds that the man would primarily dissolve the bodies in lye baths to get rid of any evidence. I can work with that.

She creates a vat of lye in the room, and has Buddie drop an aluminium container holding the key to the door into the vat. “If he takes too long, both the container and the key will dissolve in the acid.” She finishes up the trap by adding a ladder on the side of the vat for climbing.

~

“Thank you for submitting your plans, I will inform you both when they are ready.”

Hearing Buddie’s voice, Zara immediately grabs onto Ed, pulling him along to the door. “Come on! We’ve got time now, let’s go watch it.”

Ed acquiesces to her decision, letting her into his apartment.