Apocalypse Redux

Chapter 52: Hunted

Isaac came in the next morning, happy as always when coming into work. It was just like Confucius had said, if you loved your work, it wasn’t actually work … or something to that effect, it had a while since Isaac had last heard it and it had been translated so often that the original phrasing had been lost somewhere along the line regardless.

But the point remained, he liked this. Doing things that would have been considered crazy by any sane standard despite their precautions, delving deeper and deeper into the guts of the supernatural, researching parts of the [System] even he didn’t know much about. Sure, a lot of their research involved him deliberately triggering the summoning system’s traps before someone else tripped over them, but others were truly new things that were being explored just for the sake of knowledge.

And it certainly didn’t hurt that he got along with everyone, even the government overseer who always sat in the corner to make approve their nonsense or point out the obvious when they got a little carried away.

If he’d actually known how to whistle, that was probably what he’d have been doing. Good job, spatial storage, friends, they’d managed to severely reduce the severity of the LA catastrophe and a few other incidents simply had never taken place. Things were good.

… and then he entered the meeting room and got a caught a look at Bailey’s face. It had something of a thundercloud, anger slowly bleeding over into fury, mixed with profound sadness and worry. Uh-oh.

On the table in front of him lay a file that strongly resembled the stereotypical police folders one saw in movies and tv shows, closed and unlabeled, but it was clear that Bailey had read it from the fresh crinkles in its spine and way the dust, a small amount of which had settled here in the few days since the last time this room had been cleaned, had shifted.

So someone had handed him a physical copy of something incredibly upsetting, in a format that the university didn’t use. A death threat, maybe?

“What’s wrong, Adam? Can I help?” Isaac asked.

“Potential issue for all of us, I’ll explain in a moment when the others arrive so I don’t have to go through it several times. They said they’d some more of the refrigerated storage crates before coming in today.” Bailey sighed.

“Mind if I check out that file, then?” Isaac asked. He really wanted to know what was going on.

“Might be better to get some context first.” Bailey suggested, so Isaac pulled the hand he’d already been reaching towards the file back.

The air in the room was tense for a minute, thick and heavy, until the sounds of familiar footsteps reached Isaac’s ears. The others were coming. There was a clattering sound in the storage room as the crates were dropped off, then the door flew open to admit Amy, who froze at the first sight of the two of them.

“Something happen?” she asked, sounding extremely worried.

“We’re about to find out.” Isaac shrugged, eyes locked on Bailey.

“Everybody come in, you all need to hear this.” the professor said somberly, prompting Patrick to squeeze himself through the doorway past Amy and sit down at the table, followed by Karl and Raul.

Amy, for some reason, continued to stand in the doorway for a few seconds even after everyone else had entered before she too joined Isaac and Bailey at the table, albeit a little apprehensively.

“Some of you might have already found out about this from the internet, but in the event you haven’t, it’ll almost certainly be on the eight o’clock news tonight. But it affects us directly, so we got a heads-up from the police directly, as well as this file.” Bailey said, gesturing to the offending object on the table in front of him.

“I find it hard to believe that’s the actual case file.” Patrick commented, taking advantage of the brief pause.

“No, it’s not. This is a proper collection of all the information that’s been released to the public and the press so we can get it without it being altered or embellished by the media, as well as know everything that might not be deemed necessary by the news.” Bailey sighed.

“There’s no easy way to say this, I’m sorry, but it needs to be said. There’s a serial killer out there targeting summoners. They only put the pieces together a couple of days ago, but then, well, they figured out the number of dead exceeds twenty, and that is only the ones definitively identified. Based on the victim profile, there could be as many as four hundred, though that would include every murdered summoner in Europe, regardless of location and method, so a lot of those were almost certainly committed by someone else.

“The method in the definitively identified cases is rather complex. The victims are all summoners, several of them with some kind of public presence that includes encouraging others to summon in some form or other.

“They’re abducted, taken to some place that’s near people but out of sight, one where people have caused issues by summoning before. Closed off areas in public parks, random people’s basements, all in the kinds of places that offer some degree of privacy but are in no way able to contain a rampaging monster. Then they’re killed using man-made tools, but in such a way that it superficially resembles the work of a monster, often one that the victim recently summoned. Lastly, the body is dumped in a semi-public place that is either good for summoning and might even have been used for it in the past. Abandoned warehouses, wooded areas in public parks, storage facilities, even a high school gym one time with the victim being one of the PE teachers there who’d uploaded a video of himself defeating a Slate Golem with his bare hands.

“Now, the police are fairly certain there’s a criteria to their victims beyond merely being summoners, otherwise the killer wouldn’t have travelled to Germany, France, Italy, Poland, Spain and Denmark to make their kills. At least one victim in every city they visited was moderately famous for some reason related to summoning, but others were only discovered to have been killing monsters after their death.

“In summation, we’ve got a serial killer who, depending on their exact motivation, might be targeting us.” Bailey explained.

“Let’s see what the file says.” Amy commented, then made a ‘come here’ gesture with her right hand and it suddenly flew into her hand “Hm.”

“What have you got?” Bailey asked.

“Nothing, I just realized I might have been watching a little too much Criminal Minds.” she answered offhandedly, the earlier apprehension nowhere to be seen.

“This isn’t the time for jokes.” Patrick shot her a glare “People died horribly and we might be in danger of the same thing happening to us.”

“Actually, now is exactly the time for these jokes. No need to fall into depression if you can avoid it.” Amy told him, flashing him a brief grin.

“Let me see that.” Patrick replied, telekinetically snatched the file out of her hands and deposited it in his own. All three of the [System Researchers] here had learned that little trick, it was simply too useful to pass up given that they could learn a truly massive number of [Skills].

“How about you give that to Isaac or me, then you three can look at it with [Scry]?” Karl rumbled, glaring at the two of them “That way, we’re not constantly yanking these things out of each other’s hands or huddled together like penguins, all trying to read the same file?”

Patrick just sighed and tossed it over, Karl grabbing it while Isaac read it from his seat next to the engineer. Mana flared and suddenly, three magical spy cameras were hovering behind his head. That was another one of the amazing utility spells he’d suggested they all learn. Amy had [Mage] as her base [Class] and had grabbed it a while ago, which had made teaching it to them easy enough.

“As concerning as this is, there are things we can do to help things. Try to vary out routes home, taking basic precautions like buying a deadbolt, being a little more careful walking home alone without anyone around, maybe getting a proper lock for this place.” Karl suggested “Also, we’re probably among the most well known summoners in Europe right now and smack in the middle of this guy’s hunting ground.”

“Or girl, you know women can be serial killers too, right?” Amy threw in “All I can say that I’m learning a portal spell and then just teleporting to work, problem solved.

“Are we sure this is person is even human?” Raul frowned, hard. His pet dinosaur, a Microraptor called Brisa, was sitting on his lap, where he was absentmindedly petting her.

“This is … a death made to look like it was caused by a [System] monster, but noticeably done so with tools, that’s downright inhumane. They’re dying all over the continent, that looks weird. And then there’s the fact that these people are all summoners with a decent Level, they aren’t weak, but the file doesn’t mention any sign of a fight. This killer has to be travelling so much that it prevents them from constantly summoning and getting stronger, but some of the victims are full-time summoners. What if it’s a monster?”

“One that hasn’t triggered the whole ‘automatic summoning’ issue despite being active for at least five weeks, possibly for the whole eight weeks since the initialization?” Patrick pointed out.

“The [System] is literally magic, who’s to say it’s the only kind that exists?” Raul argued.

“Nah, I tried out all of that, magic was fake before.” Amy shrugged “Maybe someone summoned Jack the Ripper’s revenant?”

“That’s oddly specific suggestion.” Karl frowned “Any reason?”

“Nah, that was just the first serial killer that came to mind.” Amy shrugged.

“A revenant?” Raul asked.

“There’s an Undead section in the summoning list, there’s probably necromancy as well.” she shrugged again, then added “Hm, do you think you could talk to the ghosts of dead people then?”

“Children, please, can we go back to the topic at hand, the normal stuff that exists in the real world instead of fantasyland?” Patrick’s voice cut through the argument, reverberating oddly in such a way that made it clearly audible over everyone else’s.

Given that his ‘entered university at 16, finished it at 18’ Wunderkind status made him the youngest person here, his use of the word ‘children’ was a bit rich, but he had a point. They’d gone off on a bit of a tangent when they should have been talking about the very real issue at hand.

“I think it goes without saying, but until someone figures out exactly how the victims are chosen or how this fucker is able to defeat such powerful people, we should be on our toes, take the precautions that Karl suggested, and those of us with [Classes] that can copy [Skills] or other abilities can grab some specific things that would help, I have some suggestions. Also, Adam, the next time the police talks to you about this, please tell them I’m willing to help any way I can.” Isaac offered.

“Look, Isaac, I know you’re powerful, but this isn’t a random monster that popped out of the ground.” Bailey said “This is a human with clear fighting prowess who’s hunting people like you, specifically.”

The professor didn’t directly mention Isaac’s off the clock summons, but it was clear that was what he was talking about.

“I know.” Isaac insisted “But I’m also a sensory specialist with excellent tracking abilities and the [Skills] to see through a lot of stealth and concealment [Skills] that only very few members of the police force will have already unlocked.”

“Look, I’ll suggest it and they’ll probably jump at the chance, especially with your good relationship, but personally, please don’t do this.” Bailey shook his head.

“Honestly, chasing after the killer surrounded by armed officers might be the safest possible place for me.” Isaac said, letting none of his inner turmoil show.

Now, this could just be a coincidence, but this strongly reminded him of a case that had been on the news in the other timeline, of a serial killer who’d murdered irresponsible summoners, but that had been a few years from now. Could it be the same person? And if so, what had happened to change that?

Or maybe he’d completely missed this entire mess in the other timeline, to focused on advancing his career after he’d been one of the few people to come in immediately after the initialization and gotten a promotion for it. He’d had a bit of a habit to focus overly much on one thing to the exclusion of everything else and missing things.

It was possible that had happened here too, it was sadly a possibility. He’d definitely have to make some enquiries about that.

Fundamentally, he could understand the reasoning behind all of this, especially given that some of the victims were truly irresponsible idiots who’d have likely run into him in a dark alley sooner or later if they didn’t learn some common sense.

But random murder was wrong on a fundamental level, for obvious reasons, no matter how much he wanted to throttle the idiots that had ended up dead, especially the ones who encouraged others to follow into their footsteps.

Sure, there were the nihilistic fuckwits who summoned monsters because they felt the end was nigh and they might as well accelerate is, or maybe that the world was diseased and needed to be purified by having all of humanity wiped out by monsters, or maybe … point was, those people were in a class of their own, a class he’d have very little compunctions about going after with lethal force. Now it only he had actual legal names for them …

However, one thing was for certain. Whoever this was, they had some kind of extraordinary [Class], unique [Skill], or monstrous level of talent. Or maybe they were a gigantic hypocrite who summoned while punishing others for the same thing.

… except Raul had been right, between travel time and however long it took to kill the victims, the killer couldn’t be possibly be a full time summoner.

Regardless of if the people in the room with him were going to be a target, he’d be going after this person, that was for certain. Now, how to get his hands on the official police files?