13 May, Monday
It was 6 in the morning and Sebastian and Moran met at the airport. It was a four hour flight and the plane will depart in half an hour. Moran set an alarm for forty minutes to nine AM. Sebastian bought two cups of coffee and handed one cup to moran.
Sebastian was wearing a dark brown T-shirt that hugged his body, a black pants as well as a black mask for this trip. The saffarone coloured wrist watch shone flashily on his left wrist. Meanwhile Moran was wearing a gray top and a black trousers.
Sebastian and Moran chatted for a while while sipping on their coffee. Moran notices that this is the first time he was talking to Sebastian one-on-one for the first time. Though it was normal as it was only their seventh day of working together. But to Moran who has been observing Sebastian for as long as they are working together and also Sebastian's aptitude test left an interesting impression on him. And so he was eager to have a conversation with him and today he finally got the chance.
"I intend to ask you about your thoughts on this case but before that I will fill you in with a little finding I did yesterday."
Sebastian: "You hardly work on weekdays, how come you decided to do so on weekends?"
"Stop the sarcasm for now. Anyways, back on the topic. I looked into the influencers who got the email and I found a pattern. You see the ones to whom the mail were sent to had a fluctuation in their viewership. They had all dirt on them which made their viewers less in number. But why do you think their viewers returned and even more than before? Did they prove themselves to be completely innocent? The reason is the quality of their content was way too good to be ignored so just as the viewers received an acceptable excuse they trickled back to them.
That is the first point I found. Second is that they also targeted influencers with SA charges to see if viewers would still watch them if their content is good. But those flopped. As far as i note, as long as the charges was not SA or R*pe or talking to minors, basically inhuman things, then viewers justified them."
Moran, after filling Sebastian with that information pressed for his opinion. Sebastian thought for a while, then responded-
"I can observe that the sender was trying to see the border that is acceptable as an excuse for the viewers to still watch your videos. Besides, it does not take a smart man to tell that the apology videos that they do are made by chatGPT."
"Correct. Now let us limit to only the three victims.The important question I want you to shed light on is- Why do you think after all the effort done by the senders to bring them to the top only to kill them?"
Sebatian: "The way you are asking, you have already figured out something?"
"I have a theory in mind but your opinion will matter more than mine."
Sebastian: "I doubt I have anything in comparison to your observation and deduction skills."
"That is true. However, the way you blend in with the crowd, how perfectly you manipulated your aptitude test to be of an average person, you are a psychopath. So you can sniff out a serial killer and their intentions instinctively. As in this case it seems highly likely the perpetrator is one."
By saying that he is a psychopath I do not intend that he is violent and manipulative, but that he views human emotions differently.
Sebastian turned serious and his whole expression changed from default which was his facade to completely stiff and serious. It appears this was his actual face. Since this was the reaction to Moran's proposal it seemed he was right. Sebastian after a second manages his composure and switches back to his default face.
Sebastian: "So you can tell? And since when did you know?"
"Since our day 2 of working together and on saturday your aptitude test answers confirmed it."
Sebastian: " I see. About the question you asked earlier, how about you tell your theory first meanwhile I think of something."
"My theory is the sender was experimenting on what type of content will go viral the most however I am not sure on this. However I think one thing is clear that they were trying to see at what borderline the viewers will still come back as I explained before. About why he killed them I would say that to keep their mouths shut about their identity."
Sebastian: "I disagree with both of your theories as we both agree that the one who killed
The victims were someone from their own locality as if the same person is caught on all three of the crime scenes. I doubt ICOA would be needed unless to investigate the unidentified drug. So the total number of people connected, a person from the sender's side is made to set in their locality. It may not be far-fetched to assume that they were the ones used as communications. So I don't think identity was the problem.
Now as to why would the sender go through all that trouble to uplift those influencers? I would say that they used the desperation of those influencers who were losing all of their followers to do something rather sinister of which outsiders absolutely cannot hear of so they are killing one by one all the influencers to keep their mouth shut."
Sebastian's theory seems right to moran. While they were discussing this the plane took flight. Moran, on realizing this, took out a notebook from his ruksak and shared it with sebastian. In it were neatly written multiple plans on how to catch the killer that they were after. They were discussing the plans
At forty-five minutes to nine Moran's alarm rung.Sebastian questioned it. Moran told him to watch rather than ask.
Moran dialed the chief's number and coughed a few times when he picked up the phone then proceeded to talk in the most sick voice ever to ask for today off. The chief had to agree.
Chief(after hanging up the phone): "Only a week and asking for days off already? I hope they don't slack off on the case. But since it is moran I doubt I will have anything to worry about since even though he sleeps through work I know he will still solve the crime before anyone else."
As for Sebastian, he already took the day off for monday on Saturday as instructed by Moran on personal message.