Hyper

[Location: Decontamination Depot t3rm1nu5 - Cafeteria]

Charlie slid his earmuffs and safety glasses into place, huffing as impatience flavored his thoughts. He had wanted to get the crew off of his depot as soon as he could, but now something delayed their departure.

He left the cafeteria and began to walk toward the depot security room. The word room might have been a bit of an exaggeration. The recording equipment used in the depot sent its video feed-back to a small space the size of a walk-in closet on the far edge of the facility. The computer and server equipment was crammed into the space along with a chair and console.

Charlie paused for a second, trying to remember the last time he had been inside the room. About a year and a half ago, one of the freighters had clipped the edge of the dock door with an engine wash cover and he had to make a copy of the video and send it to Central. Other than that, the room pretty much just gathered dust.

As Charlie arrived at the security room, he noticed the door was slightly ajar and light was seeping out of the crack around the frame. Expecting to see Roy, he walked to the door and pulled the soot covered knob to open it.

“Were you able to—” Charlie froze in his tracks as fear and surprise flushed through his body at the sight in front of him. He walked like a zombie through the door way speechless, his mouth hanging open.

Roy was sitting in the chair and slouched over, face down on the console. Blood and other bodily fluids covered the console as well as Roy’s head and shoulders. Charlie became dizzy and leaned against one of the computer server cabinets to regain his balance.

Breathe…breathe…inhale…exhale…calm down.

Charlie looked away for a second and then back to Roy as sweat began to bead on his forehead. His stomach was queasy, but he thought he could hold back the vomit sitting at the back of his throat.

There was roughly a six-inch bloody hole in the back of Roy’s head and bits and pieces of skin, skull, and brain matter were sprinkled down his back and onto the chair. Small splatters of blood covered the ceiling, the equipment, and the walls.

Charlie had seen a lot of grotesque things during his time in the Army as well as in the prison but this definitely had to be the worst. He inched forward to get a closer look as questions ran through his mind.

What the hell did that to the back of his head? Who did this? What the hell is going on?

He looked ahead of Roy’s corpse and noticed that the controls and monitors of the console had been smashed as well. Large dents had been hammered into the metal console top and were filled with Roy’s blood and brain matter.

It must have been a blunt weapon or a tool like a hammer to do this much damage. A person’s fists couldn’t do this.

Charlie looked around and located Roy’s tool belt. He lifted it from the floor and inspected the contents. As he suspected, Roy’s ball peen hammer was missing.

The situation in front of Charlie was now becoming evident. Roy had been murdered.

But why? By whom?

He dropped Roy’s tool belt and closely inspected the security console equipment. Whoever had taken out their anger on Roy saved a bit of rage for the console and left it heavily damaged and nonfunctioning. The monitor had been smashed, the keyboard had lost about half of its keys, and there were numerous divots where the hammer had done its work.

Charlie stood still for a few seconds and tried to keep his emotions under control.

The disk…

Charlie leaned across the console and opened a small compartment door that housed the memory disk that held the video for the entire facility for the last twenty-four hours.

The disk, which was about the size of a United States postage stamp, had been removed from the console.

Shit. Nothing. Whoever killed Roy took the disk.

Charlie started to spin the clues of the Rubik’s Cube mystery in front of him to see if he could get all the sides to match. The disk must have been taken for what it would reveal about Jozef’s death, which most likely wasn’t an accident. Smashing the equipment would also prevent the recording of future events—maybe something even more sinister that the killer was still planning to do. Charlie let the sobering thoughts run through his mind.

This guy probably isn’t done yet.

A jolt of reality shot through him as he pulled his handheld from his breast pocket. He quickly dialed Linda using the secured line and waited for her to answer. It rang once, twice, and she did not answer. With each ring, Charlie’s level of terror increased ten-fold. The fourth ring, then the fifth, then the sixth.

Then the handheld connected and a faint voice came through the speaker. “Hello?”

Charlie barked into the phone. “Hun, you okay?”

Linda replied in a faint voice, “I’m good. I laid down for a second and fell asleep. You just woke me up…what time is it? Will you be home soon? Is something wrong?”

Charlie didn’t want Linda to panic, but he also wanted to express to her the severity of the situation. “What I need you to do is lock the deadbolt on the hallway door outside our quarters.”

Linda’s voice became concerned. “What’s wrong? Does it have something to do with the prisoner? Has he escaped?”

“No, nothing like that. Just get yourself secured in our quarters and I’ll tell you the rest around the campfire tonight.”

Linda replied sharply, “I knew those guys were trouble.”

“Yeah, lots of trouble. Now get yourself locked in our quarters. I gotta go. Love ya.”

Linda voice changed back to faint and loving again. “I love you more.”

Charlie slid his handheld into his pocket and then stepped back from Roy’s bloody corpse. He felt confident that Linda was safe and didn’t want to let worrying about her cloud his focus.

Scientists have described men as waffles and women as spaghetti to try and explain the way they process situations. Guys tend to keep things compartmentalized, like the squares of a waffle, thinking and working on only one thing at a time. Women are able to combine their efforts and work on multiple tasks at one time like a piece of spaghetti running from one side of the plate to the other. Charlie definitely fit into the waffle mold and he knew it. He wanted to focus on the task at hand and didn’t want to be interrupted by any outside forces.

As he stood there, he began to look around the room for any kind of clue that might help him determine who had pounded a hole in the back of Roy’s skull. He had been trained in crime scene investigation while he was a military police officer, but most of what he learned had slipped away over time due to lack of use. One thing he did notice was that the ball peen hammer appeared to be missing.

He must of taken the murder weapon with him.

Charlie inspected the floor around the chair that held Roy’s corpse but found few useful clues. He could see smudges of footprints, but nothing that he could identify. Plus, some of the footprints were probably his own.

He grabbed his handheld and keyed his mic in an attempt to raise Jack. “Jack, this is Charlie. Copy.” He wiped the sweat from his face with his free hand.

After a few seconds Jack’s voice came over the speaker. “This is Jack, go ahead.”

“I need to meet with you and Ruben in the cafeteria in about ten minutes.”

“Sure, we’ll be there.”

“Don’t bring Tom with you. Keep’m workin’ on the repulsor.”

“I haven’t seen him, but I hope he’s in the lab fixin’ that darn thing.”

Charlie paused for a second and let the words run through his mind again.

Haven’t seen’m. What the fuck?

“All right, whatever. See you in ten minutes.” Charlie closed the connection and placed his handheld into his breast pocket.