BAST

No One Will Believe You

I wanted to be selfish, greedy, and just ignore all the horrid things going on outside this building. I knew L wouldn't let me and I knew L would become completely insane if he didn't have a case to work on. It was hard to accept sometimes, but it would be hard to transition him from cases to a semi-normal life.

While I stalled for time, I ended up doing some easier cases on the side.

Like the Alexa murders going around. The recently popular computerized voice service system was killing the occupants of specific houses it had been installed in.

They all started with her glitching out, the only notion they had been hacked. Apparently, it sounded like the computerized female voice had some kind of cold, coughing or stuttering before seeming just fine for another week or so. Then everyone would end up dead, Alexa having altered itself to release a more persuasive frequency to convince people to commit suicide using whatever was most convenient at the time.

The sound really just grated on my ears; I detested automated voice systems.

I got lucky as the two turned out to be connected. Almost all of them had been in the houses of ex-clients around the world, making it possible for them to use a long distance approach from any other database.

Any other computer with internet access.

My job had been to go in and trace every possessed Alexa; scuba diving into the data she had left behind after being hacked.

The name BAST was being framed for these murders, so I had to end them ASAP. Just because I was capable of doing things like this didn't mean I would.

But people loved their villains.

Usually, by this point, I would send my cats out to assist me but knew all or most would not return from their patrol.

This was all a nuisance, preventing me from doing as I wished. This was the conclusion I inevitably came to after thinking this case through. When L and I weren't playing chess or sleeping, we were working on this case.

On and off I would feel useless and depressed, unable to pinpoint our culprit in my search through Alexa as a whole. It was impossible to tell where they were, physically without the use of both my cats AND my hacking.

How many were there? What were they doing, and what did they think this would really accomplish?

I knew most of these answers. They were trying to coax me out from hiding, smoke me out like a fox using my usual means against me.

BAST was a name more infamous than before, but now I was insulted.

My only choice now was to go out and meet them head on. With this known and accepted, I left my refuge and took a bus to the nearest zoo. It was like being in jail and using your one phone call for that one unreliable family member you didn't like because you knew they'd be the only one still awake to pick up. I'd never liked the zoo, but it was my last resort.

The animal kingdom edition of an orphanage, except here, there was no age of leaving and living freely. They were trapped here for life surrounded by electric fences.

Now I was seated before the tiger exhibit, staring in at large, mournful eyes the color of the sun with half its intensity.

Talking to them as I sat here was like my last meal before my execution but I was ready.

Taking my leave and heading back some hours later, I could almost see them closing in even without my cat friends. My peripheral vision catching them before my normal sight did, but I smirked.