NOVEL NEXT 075: Justice and Kindness (𒐀)
SACNICTE'S MURDER
So. Whodunnit?
Looking at the situation in the most straightforward terms possible, and knowing the last time she'd been definitively confirmed as alive by multiple people was when Mehit's body was rushed through the room, for Sacnicte, there were four... No, five clear windows in which she might have been murdered, each of them with their own likely culprit or set of culprits.
The first candidate was obvious. Zeno had been with her for well over an hour, giving her plenty of time to administer a poison, whether by injection, ingestion, or tactical snake attack. And though Seth, Ophelia, and Ptolema had reported seeing Sacnicte alive as they stepped down the stairs, there was still a brief window between that point and when Zeno had stepped out into the hall.
The issue, though, was that it was a very brief window - if I had to put a number on it, I'd have to say Zeno appeared in the main hall somewhere between 30 seconds and a minute after the trio left with Mehit. That gave her literal moments to quickly incapacitate and inject Sacnicte. Though not strictly impossible, that felt like something that only made sense in bridge drama logic; when you tried to imagine a real person taking the risk of trying to pull it off, well... It just didn't seem sensible. Likewise, the notion that Zeno, for all her presumed expertise in the science of the mind, being able to time a slower-acting neurotoxin to kill someone within a window of a few minutes when they'd just happen to have an alibi?
No, you idiot. Turn the situation around, the logical part of my brain said. Once things started happening, didn't it seem like Zeno was suddenly looking for any excuse to leave the security center? She came out twice, both before and after you went looking for Mehit, and ignored the logic bridge going off in the room she was already in to come out and pester everyone, and couldn't even really justify why. Who's to say she wasn't trying to manufacture an alibi as soon as the rough window for the poison came into effect?
I considered this. It was a... Not unreasonable idea, but still felt like sort of a stretch. It still required too many variables going perfectly.
But then, didn't any scenario? Like, the audacity of trying to kill someone when there were still people within spitting distance--
Tch. No. It was like Theodoros said. There was no sense in calling something stupid when it had already happened.
The second candidate was Ophelia, when she rushed from the underground out to the main hall to deliver the request from Ptolema. This one was about as simple as it got in this absurd situation. It was a clear window when Sacnicte would have been alone where she could have quickly attacked her from behind, injected her with a fast-acting poison, and then moved right along. No one but her had a precise sense of exactly how much time passed between the request and when she burst through and spoke to the rest of us, so she could have easily had two or even three minutes, depending. Much more believable.
But then... It was Ophelia. It wasn't easy to imagine her overpowering someone and killing them, even if it was another woman.
After this, you started getting into group efforts. The third possibility, which overlapped with the fourth, was that Ophelia, Ptolema, and Seth had conspired together to murder her. This gave them a massive window - from the moment that Zeno stepped out into the hall until the moment we returned with the tools; approaching a solid 10 minutes.
The main problem with this idea - aside from, as a group, them conspiring to commit murder seemed even less plausible than Ophelia alone - was Anna. Either she'd have to be in on it too, or they'd needs to have found a means to send someone upstairs to escape her attention. Which would probably be Ophelia, which folded back into the previous theory.
The fourth idea and least likely idea, which I knew to be untrue but nevertheless would probably be considered by the broader group, was that me, Ran, and Kamrusepa could have conspired to murder her in - probably with Ophelia involved again - the tiny window in which we'd rushed through the security center on the way to deliver Ptolema's tools. Though we'd easily be able to overpower her in this moment and there'd be no other witnesses, we'd only have maybe 5 or 10 seconds to make it happen, leaving it a tremendous stretch.
I could see the appeal in the notion, though. After all, the four of us were the only real candidates for having killed Yantho in a way that wasn't completely esoteric. An unlikely but complete answer could be more satisfying than a likely but incomplete one.
Finally, there was the dark horse possibility: Yantho could have murdered her himself. Though completely at odds with everything we knew about him and the apparent reaction he had to Sacnicte's death, he was the one who discovered her body alone. And with so much to do with him already coming across as strange or impossible in the situation... It would be stupid to rule out.
Of course, nothing in the real world can be narrowed down so absolutely. There were always fringe possibilities the mind couldn't reasonably account for.
"Let's start by stating the obvious," Zeno said, resting her head on the side of her palm. "Obviously, the crime was committed by someone in our group. We surrounded the only entrances at all times. Even in the unlikely event that someone else did the actual killing, several people within our ranks would have to be complicit."
"That's not... Necessarily true," Linos said. "We can't dismiss the possibility that it really was something the culprit set up in advance, like... I don't know, a device to pump gas into the room--"
𒊹
PLAYWRIGHT: Bzzt! Wrong! I don't think so, doofus! A secret gas pump? What is this now, a spy thriller? Should we be on the lookout for poison darts that fire out of people's watches, too?
PLAYWRIGHT: I mean, come now. This is tiresome. What's the point of even bothering to speculate if you're just going to end up fixating on contrived, desperate nonsense? It's like trying to watch a sport where they change the rules every few minutes. There's no structure-- You might as well just pick an answer you like first then work backwards. Oh, don't like Balthazar? He has a sorta murdery energy to you? Maybe he secretly trained a pet rat to carry out assassinations from the other side of the facility!
PLAYWRIGHT:
PLAYWRIGHT: So bugger that. Even if the characters can't be stopped from saying stupid things, we can at least make matters somewhat less frustrating on our end.
PLAYWRIGHT: You remember rule 3? The one about how systems introduced cannot break their own rules, yadda yadda? Let's get a little bit more specific with that, shall we?
3a) A MURDER CANNOT BE COMMITTED USING A DEVICE NOT ESTABLISHED BEFOREHAND
PLAYWRIGHT: There we are. I feel as though this one doesn't need that much in the way of clarification, but just to make sure, a "murder" is defined as someone killing someone else in a manner that is, or is presumed to be, against their will... While the "device" is the method or weapon used for that selfsame task.
PLAYWRIGHT: In this instance, that would be the poison gas. Is there poison gas? Of course not!
PLAYWRIGHT:
PLAYWRIGHT:
DIRECTOR: Technically speaking, since it was established shortly after Neferuaten's murder that the Sanctuary is extensively trapped--
PLAYWRIGHT:
𒊹
"--or something along those lines. We already know whoever did this had extensive access to the entire facility - it's not beyond the realms of possibility."
"I already looked over the machines," Anna stated simply, from downstairs.
"With the greatest respect, Anna, we can't put our trust in a cursory examination," Linos protested, raising his voice a little. "We have to assume they'd attempt to hide it from that much."
In a way, it did speak well of Linos's character that he seemed unwilling to not only consider his own son a potential culprit, but seemingly anyone in our group, if to a lesser extent. It made him come across as naive, perhaps, but at least compassionate rather than purely self-interested.
Well, unless he was the culprit himself, and trying to stymie any actual investigative work. That wouldn't be so great.
"Linos, stop being fucking ridiculous," Zeno said, her brow flat. She'd brought her stockpile into the room and was sitting on its periphery, tapping her fingers against one of the boxes. "If the girl was killed by an airborne neurotoxin, do you think we'd have people who strolled right in within a minute or two left perfectly fine? This exercise is moronic."
"S-Still, if not by that method, then by some other," Linos replied stubbornly. "My point is, we shouldn't presume it to be an absolute certainty. There could even be another entrance or exit to the room we're not aware of - the underground segment isn't built directly parallel to the main one."
I'd taken a quick look, and hadn't found anything in support of the story. The security center was tiny and lacked windows to begin with, and the whole premise behind the place was that it was supposed to be hard to get in or out.
"It's not a bad idea to keep our minds open, I guess," Fang said, staring at the ceiling. "You never know, right? Maybe there was a syringe in the seat that went into their butt."
"Exactly-- You never know," Linos said, despite the fact that this was probably sarcasm.
Zeno rolled their eyes. "Alright. If it will keep this moving, I'll concede that there's a one, maybe two percent chance that it wasn't someone in this room right now. But it's an obscenely low number."
"You're laboring this point rather hard for one of the foremost suspects," Kamrusepa said dryly.
"As I already explained, my alibi is airtight. I left the room the instant that your group passed through, when miss Ic'Nal was still visibly alive." She narrowed her eyes. "Since you're all 'honor students', I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt in knowing that trying to time a poisoning down to the minute is like trying to stop the hands of a clock with darts. It'd make me a pretty stupid murderer if I attempted it." She shook her head. "No, the more obvious candidates should be obvious."
"You're going to say Utsushikome and I, I assume?" Kamrusepa replied, in a serious tone.
"Oh no, not at all. I mean, you probably killed the other kid, but we'll get to that in a few minutes." She swept a little aquamarine hair out of her eyes. "No-- I'm talking about her."
She pointed square at Ophelia, who didn't look shocked, but nevertheless made a pained, uncomfortable expression.
"Seriously?" Seth said. "Ophelia? She wouldn't hurt a fly."
"Argumentum ad misericordiam? I guess it was too much to expect rationality from a bunch of children." Zeno made a dismissive gesture. "She was the only person alone in the room with the victim at the time that makes sense for the crime. Any other theory relies on contrivance or an unlikely band of conspirators."
"I... I didn't kill her," Ophelia said, her tone rigid and sad.
Zeno scoffed. "Well, of course you'd say that." She crossed her arms. "But you are the only reasonably viable candidate, is all I'm saying. And frankly, I don't buy your oh-so-demure waif persona. Your presentation showed that you certainly aren't squeamish."
"Didn't Sacnicte have some sort of security duty here?" Kam asked. "I think I recall hearing something along those lines."
"That's right," Linos said, with a sad nod. "She was trained to use the Power offensively, as well as some experience in hand-to-hand combat, if I recall - though nothing professional."
"Hard to imagine Ophelia could overcome her so early," Kam said. "She's rather sickly, if you haven't noticed. All sorts of chronic conditions."
"There's more than one way to skin a cat," Zeno said skeptically.
I glanced around, and noticed that Seth, Ptolema, and Ran were all wearing somewhat awkward expressions. They'd probably had the same thought as me.
In the hallway, we'd seen Ophelia kill that golem with a syringe of some substance, probably that she used to work with her own creations. Presumably, failed attempts at things like he artificial liver would occasionally have to be put out of their misery. The method and the speed at which it had died both perfectly aligned with the circumstances of Sacnicte's death. She really was the perfect suspect, to the point that it felt almost too obvious.
But no one who'd seen that moment seemed to want to bring the information up. Accusing her when she'd risked her life along with the rest of us trying to save Mehit, when we'd never known her to be anything but kind compassionate, felt wrong, and we couldn't just raise the question of 'who might be trying to implicate Ophelia' without drawing everyone who didn't hold such presuppositions to the conclusion that she was, in fact, guilty.
Was she guilty? Was I being tremendously irrational? Hadn't I always suspected myself that there was another side to her?
No one is exactly what they seem to be. Everyone, even children, hold another world behind their eyes where they consider certain acts permissible that they would never admit openly. But still, people cannot hide themselves absolutely from others. Individuals constantly inclined to violent and contemptful thoughts find them leaking out in subtle ways, staining the periphery of their persona like condensation coming through a window. Or to speak personally, even though I was good at hiding the facts concerning my personal life, people still often picked up on the fact that I was a closed book and had terrible self-esteem-- Well, so long as they cared enough to pay attention.
The self was like an incriminating pile of magazines. You could throw it under the carpet whenever someone came into the room, and keep it from the eyes of others... But most of the time, after long enough, they'd still see a vague shape beneath. An outline, to some extent or another.
Though it might've been projecting, I found it hard to believe Ophelia could have an inner world so contrary to her outward self. I could easily picture her hiding some deep-seated trauma, or even a smoldering bitterness under her kind and reserved affect. But the kind of cold-blooded intent you'd need to stab someone in the throat with a syringe, and then step out to lie to your friends about it a moment later?
You're being naive, my inner skeptic said. Do you think actors don't exist? Con artists?
"There's another suspect you're missing," Ran said. "Yantho himself. He had a chance to kill her while we were all downstairs. Then he could have just set himself up as the one to 'find the body' as an out for the situation."
I blinked, surprised at Ran's willingness to cast doubt on Yantho after having seen his reaction, especially since they'd developed such a rapport the previous day. But then, she was nothing if not pragmatic when push came to shove.
"Only to drop dead himself moments later?" Zeno responded, raising an eyebrow. "Doesn't seem particularly likely."
"We can't make any judgements based on Yantho's death," Ran said. "We still don't understand what even killed him."
"Yeah, I mean-- That's kinda the crux of all this, isn't it?" Fang said.
YANTHO'S MURDER
"I mean," they went on, "it's so out there, I feel like it makes it hard to speculate about anything? It's like if a fairy stole your wallet. Any self-reflection you wanna do about maybe getting a chain or something is gonna be dwarfed by the whole 'woah, faeries exist?' thing."
They weren't wrong. If Sacnicte's death was confounding because of how swiftly it must have been executed and how stupid we had to have collectively been to permit it to happen, Yantho's was just plain confounding, period. It felt like there was no way to explain it rationally at all.
After his death, both Anna and Seth - to make sure there was no possibility of a compromised examination - had performed a quick autopsy on the body... But had found no clear cause of death whatsoever. There were no apparent wounds, nothing in his bloodstream that could be easily identified as a toxin. Everything seemed to be working perfectly - there was even still activity in the lower portions of his brain, though only Anna had examined that component. It was like his cerebral cortex had just... Turned off.
Of course, this wasn't comprehensive. We had a limited supply of eris, especially among our Biomancers, who had already used much of their supply treating Mehit. Things could slip through the cracks.
"Maybe he like... Died of shock?" Ptolema said.
"That is not, if you will forgive my bluntness, a 'real thing', Ptolema," Kamrusepa said.
"It seems all pretty straightforward to me," Zeno said, casual. "Consider. Regardless of how the boy was killed, we know when he died, and who was in a position to enact the crime. Ergo, since people are not in the habit of dying spontaneously, we can make a reasonable judgement without understanding the specifics." She pointed to Ophelia, Kamrusepa, Ran, and me. "These four were the only ones near him at the time of death - who, if I understand their account correctly, were literally touching him at said time - and their group happens to include the most likely suspect for having murdered the other one, so..."
Wow, this is the first time I've ever been incorrectly accused of murder. Well, other than when she'd already accused us a few minutes ago.
"That's fucking ridiculous," Seth said. "Without even a cause of death, we can't just start throwing out accusations. Them having been around when he died isn't proof of shit."
"I'm sorry-- Is this a criminal trial, now?" Zeno asked, raising an eyebrow. "As far as I'm concerned, we're not trying to indict someone beyond a shadow of a doubt. We're trying to figure out who we ought to be preventing from stabbing the rest of us in the back, that's all."
"Good gods," Kamrusepa said. "It's a pity that we don't have any Astromancers present. You could see the hypocrisy at work here from space."
"I don't think this is fair, Zeno," Linos said. "It only happened to be their group that went up the stairs in that moment by pure chance. If this was somehow planned, what would they have done if master Ikkuret and miss Rheeds had followed after them, too?"
"I don't know. I can't read their minds." She made a dismissive gesture. "Look. I'm not saying that it was their exact group in totality - for all I know, the blonde girl could have poisoned the kid and then left the mess in the hands on those two." She pointed again to Kamrusepa and I. "All I'm saying is that there's no other viable candidate than them."
"Someone could have poisoned him before he even went into the room," Ran said.
Zeno snorted. "Sorry, no serious candidates other than you. My point is: It alone is a liability."
"And you consider yourself above this sort of logic," Kamrusepa said.
"No, but at the end of the day, I am the one with the power here, and the most at stake in terms of my life's labor." She narrowed her eyes. "I'm not about to place myself in undue danger."
Zeno's feelings aside, I couldn't help but feel we had overlooked something vital.
My mind kept going back to what Fang had said. Right before Yantho had run down the hall, he'd looked shocked by something. But not after he saw Sacnicte-- Before he even turned to look at her. Had he heard something? That didn't seem likely, unless it was a sound only he'd consider important; nobody else had reacted, after all. But then, what?
All of this is being looked at backwards, a quiet voice in my mind spoke. When something which appears to be impossible happens, that means there's something you don't know, but haven't noticed. An assumption, a misunderstanding...
THE CULPRIT'S PLAN
Fang was looking preoccupied, their eyes staring into the middle distance. Ptolema, probably looking for a means to change the subject, seemed to notice.
"What're you thinkin', Fang?"
"Uhh? Ohh." They bit their lip, scratching the side of their head. "Well, I guess I'm thinking about the bigger picture with all of this. LIke, all of this happened because half of you guys went out to try and rescue Mehit, right?"
Linos blinked. "You think this could all have been planned?"
"Hey, I didn't say that," they replied, holding up a hand. "Just, well, it did all turn out pretty perfectly, y'know? They got everybody worked up and scared, got Mehit moved right where she needed to be to set up a chance for somebody to kill the victim... People even had another reason to run in and out when the Power suddenly failed downstairs. And that message ended up being right on point for what eventually happened." They scrunched up their nose. "You know that itch you get in the back of your head, when you can't quite see something fuzzy?"
"Yes," I said, without even really meaning to.
"Yeah, I figured you would, Su," they said, nodding. "I'm trying to work back through it, but I can't quite piece it together. It's all too much crap going on at once." They shook their head. "Man, if only I hadn't been off in my own head when this was all going down, trying to figure out who might've sent that message..."
"Fundamentally, there are really two possibilities," Kamrusepa said. "Either the culprit was a true mastermind who manipulated the entire situation to enable them to have a chance to commit the murder... Or they were an opportunist, who took advantage of an emerging situation. Both point to different candidates."
It was true. Actually, thinking about it, it was probably wiser to take a step back and think about the whole situation from that perspective, rather than trying to deduce the culprit directly through purpose of elimination as we had been so far. To consider the crime as it must have been planned, rather than just how it was executed.
If we went with the 'opportunist' theory, Zeno was, unfortunately, pretty logical in their thinking. The best candidate was easily Ophelia, with Ptolema and Seth as perhaps the runner-ups. They'd be in the best position to have exacerbated the existing chaos to create a window for the murder, being the ones who suggested going out to search for Mehit, then requesting we go fetch Ptolema's tools. It felt out of character, but-- That was the rational conclusion, based strictly on the facts.
On the other hand, if we went with the 'mastermind' theory, the best suspect would probably be someone like Zeno. She'd have enough knowledge of the sanctuary's systems to potentially predict, or even at a stretch orchestrate, the golem attack. In the worst case scenario, it could even be Anna and her working together - if that were so, they could even have partially fabricated what we'd been told about the sabotage to the system down when we were in the sublevel, though that would require Linos to have not noticed when he was also looking over the terminal, and didn't seem too likely to begin with. I mean-- The two of them were so experienced, it wouldn't have been hard to dispense with the whole 'murder mystery' premise and kill us more conventionally.
...but when I put it in those terms, the culprit being one of the two of them, along with an accomplice outside of our group, could answer a lot of questions. The accomplice could have attacked Mehit and Lilith, then set it up to look like a golem attack to mislead us. They could have dressed as the monster, frightening us all in the hallway. They could have run downstairs and temporarily suppressed the Power. The only thing they couldn't have done was kill Sacnicte and Yantho.
They could also have been responsible for what happened to Durvasa. Yeah... The more I thought about, the more there being both an insider and an outsider culprit felt likely.
Still, there were holes in that theory, thinking about it. If the culprit had attacked Lilith and Mehit and left them alive, that would make them both witnesses, which felt too sloppy unless them surviving was their intent. And further, how would they have communicated with their accomplice, when we were closed off from the outside world?
The obvious answer was, 'when they'd summoned us all using the logic bridge'. But a logic bridge summoning couldn't discriminate from who picked up the call, so that was out. And based on Sacnicte's explanation the previous day, any other contact between them could be tracked from the security center, leading to the potential of exposure from a quick look--
Suddenly, I froze.
My eyes wandered to the logic bridge, and then to Lilith.