Zoraster sighed, took a deep puff of his cigar, and erupted into a fit of coughing. Hectic patiently stared at him for five minutes before he regained his composure. ‘I wish it was kiddo, but she was the most qualified candidate. Well, the most qualified candidate that was
left
.’Hectic had only been in training for twenty years but was already considered one of the three or four most promising junior detectives in his five-person department. It was no surprise that he picked up on Zoraster’s subtle hints.
‘Kiddo you say. Could Zoraster be implying that he’s only kidding and theres.’ Hectic stroked his chin. ‘Maybe there’s more to this than meet the eye.’
‘Listen boyo, I know losing your internal monologue was a blow, but try and keep your suspicions to yourself, you hear me? If there was foul play involved with ISIS securing the position, then it’d run all the way to the top.’
‘I didn’t lose my internal monologue.’ Hectic growled. ‘We both know Flopz stole it last April.’
‘I didn’t mean to imply anything buckaroo.’ Zoraster protested. ‘I certainly wasn’t saying you lost it because you’re the most talent-less hack that’s every walked into my precinct. I’m not implying that you’re terrible at your job, that a dead frog would catch more killers than you would. You definitely aren't the worst sorry excuse for a detective that I've ever seen.'
Hectic frowned. It almost felt like Zoraster was insulting him until he reminded himself that the captain had clarified he wasn’t implying any of that. It was a cunning ploy. Much like the cunning ploy Hopkirk had helped him put together recently to fake losing his internal monologue.
Everyone would assume someone without an internal monologue couldn’t secretly plot against them. They’d be in for a surprise when he broke into their houses at night and slightly rearranged the furniture. He’d seen entire families collapse after he’d done that before. Maybe he should have felt guilty, but he knew in the depths of his heart that they’d deserved it, otherwise he wouldn’t have done it. He was a force of karmic balance in the world, and right now he could tell ISIS deserved everything he was planning to do to her.
Hectic cunningly noticed Zoraster was getting concerned that he hadn’t said anything in the last eight minutes. Fortunately, Zoraster had lit another cigar, so it was more like two or three minutes of staring unaccounted for. Hectic decided to maintain his gaze and his silence for another fifteen minutes to avoid suspicion. Naturally, Zoraster cracked first.
‘They made me do it.’
‘Who made you do it?’ Hectic said.
‘You think Micc’s ‘accident’ was really an accident?’ Zoraster laughed. ‘They’ve been behind it since the very beginning.’
‘Who’s been behind it from the very beginning.’
‘You really don’t know what they’ve got planning do you.’
‘What who’s planning.’ Hectic sighed. ‘Listen, we’ve talked about this Zoraster. You need to actually start answering people’s questions.
‘Fine, I’ll tell you. The real secret behind ISIS becoming the new micro list mod is a very interesting secret. Anyone would love to know it. In fact…’ Zoraster paused and Hectic noticed his skin was turning a worrying shade of green purple that he’d only seen Zoraster do after he fed him bees as a joke that one time.
‘Are you ok?’ Hectic rushed over.
‘They got me sonny.’ Zoraster croaked out. ‘Don’t let them get away with this.’
‘Who?’
‘It was… it…’ Zoraster’s voice trailed off as his eyes glazed shut. Hectic dropped the body and kicked him in the shin a few times to express his frustration with people being needlessly vague. It always made him mad when people didn’t clearly explain how stuff like this made them feel, or did the whole dying without giving away the vital information thing. He spotted Micc lying on the ground in the hallway gasping for breath, but he’d probably do the same thing
Hectic took out his phone and placed a call. His detecting partner picked up on the third ring.
‘Hello?’
‘It’s me.’ Hectic said.
‘Is this about ISIS.’
‘How’d you know?’ Hectic narrowed his eyes.
‘Remember I can’t see your facial expressions over the phone, so if you’re doing anything expressive with your eyes I wouldn’t be able to tell.’
Hectic nodded, that made sense. He waited for Hopkirk to continue, something he’d frequently noticed Hopkirk did sometimes after pausing for breath when he wasn’t being strangled by the real killer.
‘I’ve sent you a few pictures. I’ll pop over later, but of course you’re in a different town, so it might take a little while. I don’t think you need me to tell you what they mean though.
Hectic didn’t. He opened the pictures. There were two virtually identical pictures of a girl with black hair, a red top, and headphones. Two different names above them.
‘Popsofctown and ISIS are the same person.’ Hectic gasped.
‘Yes, and it looks like our friend ISIS made one fatal mistake.’
Hectic checked his phone as it pinged again. Hopkirk had send his screenshots of a post ISIS had made earlier in the day.
‘Publically confessing unprompted?’I noticed someone in the queues curious about tenure, so I thought I'd mention this here: Isis is a reincarnated main account for popsofctown, so for the benefit of anyone surprised about same-year-join-date-listmod (it's not categorically impossible, but it'd be rarer) or any returning oldies looking at global stickies, hey, this is the same individual.
‘Exactly.’
‘I can’t believe how many of our cases end up with the lead suspect doing that.’
‘Yeah, it really takes some of the challenge out of the work.’
‘Ok, see you at the agency later.’
Hopkirk hung up without saying goodbye. They’d arranged to always meet at the same place and time to save them a few seconds at the end of calls. The policy caused them a few issues when they were on international missions, but on the whole was reasonably effective.
Hectic knew Hopkirk was thinking the exact same thing he was, the case was going to be a lot tougher than they could publicly admit.
ISIS had leaked the pictures and the information because she knew they’d make people think she and popsofctown were the same person.
That didn’t explain where her twin sister with the large life insurance policy on her had been for the last year. Hectic had a hunch that ISIS was behind that murder as well.
Now all he had to do was prove it.