Killers and Trivialities

Chapter 5

Chapter 5 - Found

As I walked away from the desk, I took something from my pocket. It was a Luminol Render Cube, standard issue for student investigators. Since we students aren’t exactly very knowledgeable or trained at forensic science, we use this instead. It basically scans and photographs a room, and acts like a luminometer. It identifies hidden fingerprints and traces of blood in a room and other such traces, and once we investigators conclude their connection to the crime, it’s registered as evidence for the current case, which is them synchronized with the government’s databases.

"Why didn’t you just use that earlier? It could have made Bryan’s job a lot easier." Zia asked me. I’ve never seen her eyes shine so bright. They were like that of a cat; bright and cute. How wonderful genetic engineering is.

Her eyes were a little too distracting, so I wiped my own eyes, and then replied “I don’t have permission to use these kinds of equipment without you, the second lead, around. Plus, I don’t want Bryan to feel left out.” 

"Oh. I forgot about that, we never really use it." Zia gave me a friendly smile. "As for Bryan, well, yeah. He needs it."

Bryan didn’t hear us. He was still too busy trying to find something to have his focus on the cube.

I placed the cube on the floor, which immediately turned on and activated its holo-display. I touched the big green button with the label “Begin Scan”. The cube emitted a light. This light spread across the room. The cube was scanning the room, and it lasted for about 3 seconds. After that everlasting moment of radiance, the light vanished, and the cube’s holo-display showed an alert message. "Scan complete. 3D Render of area initiated, please wait."

"Well, we have to wait for a few minutes for the render to finish." I stated, with Iris looking at me like I was a weird, mutated man-thing.

"That’s it? You put some cube on the ground and some magic happens?. I have to say, I’m kind of disappointed. I thought you were going to examine the body with a scalpel and dust out fingerprints or something." Iris said. What did she think my job was? A corpse mutilator?

"I’m not an old-fashioned, stereotypical forensic investigator you see in those boring detective shows, Iris. I’m a student investigator, and I only make hypotheses on who did this and who did that, and why they did this and why they did that. We do a little bit of crime scene investigation, but only to find evidence on who did the crime. Simply put, we’re only here to find and apprehend the killer, nothing more." I made a rant while we were standing around doing nothing, besides waiting for the cube to finish rendering.

"Oh... I assumed-" She was interrupted by Darren, much to her annoyance.

"Oh, don’t listen to him, Iris. Jaden’s just a big killjoy. If you want, we could go to another crime scene and examine the corpse there." Darren said, making his best casanova face.

"Gross. Just... Don’t come near me." Iris proceeded to go to Zia, who was frankly better company for her.

Darren went near me, and said "Damn it. It usually works for other girls."

"Well, other girls just aren’t really as smart as Iris. They’re not very good at controlling their hormonal impulses, too." I replied, with Darren playfully punching my shoulder.

"You’re not exactly very good with Zia, either." Darren laughed at me.

"Go die in a fire." I said to his prick face. He continued to laugh.

After a few minutes, the render was finally finished. I knew, because the cube emits a loud and annoying beep sound whenever it’s done. Imagine a jet engine noise, with the pitch cranked up to maximum. Painful, isn’t it? For some reason, Darren was sitting next to the cube, which is a pretty painful position to be in.