Real Murder? Part 3

Guys and girls entered the room. Although there was no classical source of light in the room, blue lights flashed everywhere. It was a projection of the starry sky. Some strange music was playing in the background. Better say, that it was a disordered collection of sounds, not a piece of music...

"Mysterious," Reia said.

On the floor was a 25-year-old guy who allegedly shot himself in the head. This was indicated by the pistol in his right hand. There was a huge pool of blood next to his dark hair.

"Ksyu, are there no ghosts on the horizon? How about if you talk to his spirit and tell us right away how he died?" David said.

"Are you a fool or what? It's a hologram. It can't have a ghost."

"Well, just try, maybe something will suddenly happen."

"Yes, Ksyu, try it, we are all interested here," Kano added.

"Uh, you can't understand how much I hate doing this," Ksyu said and closed her eyes.

She stood with her back to the door and tried to concentrate. At that moment, someone touched her on the back.

"Iyaaaa!" she shouted and jumped on the place.

Aram appeared behind her.

"Am I too late?"

"Are you out of your mind! I almost got to the next world because of you!" she said. "Although, I already wanted to connect with the other world... But it doesn't matter! Don't you dare scare me like this!"

"Sorry, it is too dark here! And this scum David sent me to the women's toilet! I will finish you, do you hear me?" Aram said, waving his fist.

"We have an important business here, please do not distract us," David said, not paying attention to Aram.

Aram was about to hit David when Reia intervened.

"Later. Decide all your business later. Now we need to understand why and how this person died."

Aram cooled his ardor.

"Can you quickly tell who has what superpower? I seem to have missed the point when everyone talks about their abilities."

"Here you go," Ksyu said, passing her notebook to Aram.

***

Ksyu: passive superpower - communication with spirits

active superpower - change appearance

Aram: passive superpower - ?

active superpower - chains

Reia: passive superpower - darkness

active superpower - super speed

David: passive superpower - instilling negative emotions

active superpower - blood

Kano: passive superpower - flies

active superpower - bandages

Alex: passive superpower - materialization

active superpower - water

Zen: passive superpower - memory management

active superpower - fire

***

Aram gave Ksyu her notebook back.

"Let me ask you what your passive superpower is," Kano asked.

"Ah, my passive ... How to explain... When I touch a corpse, I feel the death of that person. I can exactly feel how he was dying."

They all fell silent.

"And if you happened to find out what kind of torment a person went through, would you answer as well? If touching the corpse, you felt all the pain, all the suffering that this person experienced, how would you respond then?" Aram's words echoed in David's mind again.

"So this is what he meant when he said it…" David thought.

"It is strong… No. He is strong," Ksyu thought.

"This ability costs him dearly," Reia thought.

"Okay, how about you split up and explore every part of this room?" Kano said.

"Give me monitors and computers," Ksyu replied.

"Then I will be paired with Ksyu," David added.

"There is another room, who wants to go there?" Zen asked. "If there are no volunteers, I will go."

Everyone looked in fear at the door of the room. Reia stepped closer and simply opened the door.

"It's just a bathroom," she said in a calm voice.

"Then I'll volunteer to examine it," Aram said. "Zen and Reia, maybe we can do it together?"

"Let's do it," both answered.

"Alex and Kano," Reia continued, "then you will get the corpse."

"Okay," Kano said coolly.

"Wow, you're fearless. Aren't you sick of the corpse?" Alex asked. There was such an expression on his face as if he was not inside an ordinary room, but a garbage truck.

"It's not a real murder," Kano said. "Why should I be afraid?"

"It's creepy anyway," Alex said.

Everyone got down to business.

Ksyu and David went to the monitors. As soon as they approached one of them by less than half a meter, the monitor screen turned on and a strange girl with two pink tails began to look at them.

"Eeee, sir... You seem to have guests…" she said in a sweet voice.

David's and Ksyu's hearts almost stopped. Even Alex and Kano, who were looping around the corpse, were frightened by an unexpected stranger's voice.

"Cover the camera with your hand," Ksyu said and pointed to a small hole at the top of the screen.

"Hey, what are you doing, I can't see anything!" a 2D girl from the screen shouted.

After a second, she fell silent. David pulled out the power cord.

"Why did you pull it out?" Ksyu screamed. "There could be a clue."

"No," David replied. "Look around. This is the room of a man who works for the Ministry of Technology. Do you think we could find something with our knowledge? Especially since all this looks like a suicide. I think the man has erased everything anyway."

"It does not matter!" Ksyu said and squatted down to shove the power cord back.

Something was lying on the floor. Ksyu briefly looked at the rectangular thing and picked it up.

"Look what I have found! A flash drive!" she said with a joyful voice.

David turned on the computer again. The girl with pink ponytails continued to talk. There was nothing on the monitor: no files, folders, bookmarks, and the like. But as soon as Reia shoved the flash drive into the computer, a folder under the name "Empty" appeared on the screen. David dragged the mouse from the left side of the keyboard to the right and clicked on the folder.

"And it's empty!" he shouted and slammed his fist on the table.

"Wait", Ksyu said. "Do you think a guy working at the Ministry of Technology would create an empty folder with such a name and throw the USB stick on the floor? There is clearly some kind of setup here."

"And what should we do? Rename it to "Not Empty"?" David said and clicked on the rename button.

All of a sudden, photos began to appear on the folder icon.

"What the hell is this?" David said, not believing his eyes.

"Ahahahaha, funny, funny," said Ksyu. "Come on, let's see what we have here."

As soon as David opened the folder, Ksyu hit him in the eyes. David fell to the floor.

"Are you crazy or what?" he shouted, holding his head with his hand. Alex and Kano turned and looked at David and Ksyu.

"They are crazy," Ksyu muttered to herself. "Photos of half-naked girls on a flash drive? What are they doing here? What if…." she thought. "What if it has nothing to do with our investigation? What if it belongs to Chief William or Felix?" Ksyu blushed. "I'm confiscating this," she said in a serious tone.

"What is there?" David asked.

"Nothing."

"How is that nothing?"

After a pause, Ksyu continued.

"Let's take a look around the whole room, maybe we can find something more useful."

"As you wish. But I will still remember what you have done to me."

David and Ksyu began to touch all the objects in the room. They raised them, lowered them, twisted them in their hands, even shook them. But nothing worked.

"How many photographs he has..." said Ksyu. "Here he graduates from the academy and stands with his parents, holding a diploma in his hand…"

"And what is this then?" David said and pointed to another photo, where the same guy was standing with his parents, but the background was slightly different. If the first photo showed the academy more, then in the second one you could see only the right side of the academy. In the background were huge green trees.

"The photo looks like a mirror image, but his parents are standing in the same places. What, then, is so strange about it," asked Ksyu.

At the same moment, Aram ran out of the bathroom.

"It is murder! A murder!"