Forget Me Not

The explosion was catastrophic. The city hadn’t seen one that big since the Oppenheimer movie came out, and even then, the world knew that it was CGI. But this one wasn’t CGI. The shockwaves from it shattered windows a mile away.

Yet, the fatality rate? Zero. The worst casualty from the explosion was a headache, and maybe a bit of tinnitus, but since those complaints came from a care home fairly close to the blast, it wasn’t clear whether that was because of it, or if that was just old people.

The buildings around the blast hadn’t survived. Anyone who had been living or working in the area had been told to stay away, since the structural integrity of the buildings had been called into question. Alas, people chose not to listen, and the first casualties – and even the first fatality – had been because no-one wanted to listen to the emergency services and politicians who demanded people stay away. As buildings crumbled, bodies emerged.

Shortly after the explosion, the city fell victim to a number of attacks. Stabbings, but no-one knew who held the knife, since it always happened in crowds. Shootings, but no gunshots were ever fired, and so it must have been a sniper. Random brakes cut on cars… it was an epidemic of assaults and batteries, even if people rarely died.

Whoever was doing this knew what they were doing. The question on everyone’s lips: why?

In the police headquarters, renowned and decorated Detective Spielman stood in front of a board, looking exhausted. Every single detective from every single commune in the city had been pulled into the main hub to pool their knowledge and try to find out who was doing it. But without that why, without any real causal link between the attacks… it just wasn’t going anywhere.

“Detective Spielman? Another stabbing. They got a knife, this time.” The officer standing in the doorway looked as tired. Spielman turned and faced his team, the exhausted smile of a breakthrough etching onto his lips.

“God have mercy, he’s slipped up!” Spielman grinned, nearly breaking down in tears. “I’ll come with you, Officer Bale.” The officer nodded, running to find out where the knife was being held. “You lot, keep working on this.”

Nods and murmurs all around the room, but the moment Spielman was gone, they called in a pizza dinner and clocked off for the night. They might not have been allowed to go home, but they were human and needed to sleep.

They’ll never forget me at this rate. They’ll never forget the terror they feel right now… not a single death, but enough to have them insecure in their mortality… what a fucking show I’ve created! How wonderful this is! Just a few more steps, a few more little stabbings, and I can reveal myself. It’ll be worth it when I go down in history…

Down in the evidence room, the knife sat on a table. It had been dusted for prints, but whoever this was, they were smart: they hadn’t left a shred of DNA on it.

“It tells us they’re wearing gloves,” Spielman murmured, pushing the knife around in a circle. “It tells us they want to be caught, now. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have let go… And this is a fixed blade. The other stabbings have been done with a retractable switchblade…”

“And the shootings, sir?” Officer Bale asked. She looked up as the door opened, and a grave-faced Detective Tyson stepped in.

“Long range. No chance of being caught. Enough distance to show off, too. Tyson?”

“I… sir, it’s bad.”

The scene on the screen was diabolical. All the detectives in the room felt sick. The Prime Minister, giving her address as normal about the year’s budget to the press, but on her forehead… a single flickering laser. Not a steady-state one, but a flickering one. One that made it near impossible to track.

“Holy fucking shit,” Spielman breathed, eyes wide. “Is this live?!”

“Yes, sir. Prime Minister Surrey is giving her budget address down in the Lower Quarter. We’re trying to find the sniper sight, but it’s too hard. There’s too little blink on it. Whoever’s going to fire that bullet is highly-trained. Higher than our SAS crews, even.”

“Jeeeeeesus FUCKING CHRIST!” Spielman bawled. “Get Surrey out of there as soon as you can. And get the Kevlar shields over there too!”

“Equipped already, sir,” someone yelled. “Actioning that.”

“They clearly want to make a point. They run the city. Not us, not Surrey. But I think it’s safe to say they’re responsible for the explosion a few weeks back, too.” Spielman ran his hands over his face. “This is a shitshow. This is the end of my career. After this, I’m fucking done.”

“I don’t blame you, sir,” said Tyson, shaking his head.

They’ll never forget the day dear Surrey’s head exploded all over the place… they think a turtle shell formation of Kevlar shields will stop this? Dear god, they’ve got some nerve…

Oops! My finger slipped.

The live execution of Prime Minister Surrey shook not just the city, but the whole country. Whoever was responsible was now facing a manhunt, the entire city swarming with every single police officer they could find. Even officers from neighbouring towns and cities had come in. And then, the city had been barricaded. Blocked off. Shut down. Mandatory curfew in place… they would find whoever it was.

Manhunt!!! MANHUNT!!! For me! Wow… time to make myself known, then. Hahaha.

The mandatory curfew obviously took some time to put into place. And in that time, in the middle of Liberation Square, as people milled around either unaware of the horrors that had happened down in the Lower Quarter, or simply just uncaring for the death of another possibly corrupted politician with too much money, a single figure clad entirely in black walked to the very middle.

The figure produced two handguns, loaded, safety off.

The figure emptied the guns into the air.

People started screaming, running off in panic as the patrolling offices leapt into action. The guns clattered to the floor, and the figure grinned as the hood of their jacket was ripped down.

“Hello, boys,” Amelia Jackson purred, laughing as her face was forced onto the ground. “Be rough with me… I like it.”

“You fucking freak,” one officer spat. “Did you kill the Prime Minister?!”

“And the rest,” Amelia chuckled. She didn’t get to say anything else. The officers had her on her feet, hauled off to the nearest car, all her limbs up in the air as they all held her tightly.

Spielman felt sick to his stomach. This woman, this young woman, sat there in the interrogation room, smiling. Smiling.

“We could be dealing with a pure psychopath,” Spielman whispered, his lips dry. “I’ve never seen someone this evil in all my life.”

“You’d better come and speak to me, Mr Spielman…” Amelia purred, looking at the door. “Otherwise the last spectacular will take place, and you’ll never get there in time to stop it from killing everyone.” Spielman felt his mouth water with that pre-vomit sensation. He swallowed it down and steeled himself. In his career, he’d handled some bad cases. Kids going missing and turning up as human soup. Women mutilated and violated. Men, incomplete and whole… but their murderers had always been easy to identify and understand. And it had nearly always been textbook. Even serial killers ended up textbook, when they let their walls down with the right person.

But Amelia Jackson was unlike anything he’d met before. Someone who wanted to cause pain, but didn’t kill? Someone who wanted to cause untold psychological trauma to thousands, millions? Someone who didn’t care if kids grew up terrified to go out on the street… diabolical. At least with murders, it was cut and dry, and the families would grieve, but the victim wouldn’t feel anything anymore…

“You have to go in there, sir,” Bale murmured.

“I’m going.”

Spielman stepped into the interrogation room and took a seat.

“Here he is…” Amelia leaned back, biting her lip. “Daddy’s home.”

“What final spectacular?”

“I figured I needed to bookend my opening scene.” Amelia’s lips curled. “After all, as Chekov said: if a gun is shown in the first act, it must be fired by the third. Now, I set off a bomb in my first act… what happened?”

“Miraculously, no-one died.” Spielman sat back. “So I guess if that’s your gun, then your third act would be the bomb killing people?”

“Quick and dirty…” Amelia chuckled.

“Where is it, Amelia?”

“What time is it?” Spielman checked his watch, then showed her. “Ah. Then you’ve got time.”

“No, we don’t have time. Where’s the bomb?”

“Trust me, you’ve got time. The thing isn’t even counting down yet, Jesus.” Amelia watched him, but he didn’t relax. “Trust me.”

“Why should I?! You’ve been walking around stabbing people and shooting people and causing car accidents! People could have died!”

“Yeah, but they didn’t. Come on. I stabbed people where I knew they’d survive. I shot people where I knew they’d survive. I cut the brakes of cars because I knew they wouldn’t get anywhere faster than twenty miles per hour before they’d have to brake.” She rolled her eyes. Spielman realised that not a single person had died in any of the car accidents, and indeed none of the accidents had occurred over twenty miles per hour.

“That – that’s – how?”

“Hmm?”

“How could you possibly have known they wouldn’t go faster?”

“Maps, my dear Watson.” Amelia picked at the hem of the green and yellow jumpsuit they had her in. “Didn’t take much thinking to look at the places where people would need to brake to join faster roads or whatever.”

“You could not have guaranteed anyone’s life,” Spielman breathed.

“No. But I wasn’t trying to guarantee anything. People can be fragile. Someone moves when you don’t expect them to, and you hit an artery. Or that delicious Thin Skull Rule…” Amelia’s eyes glinted. “People can be unpredictable, and it pisses me off.”

“Is that why you did it? To make a point? To make people afraid to live?” Spielman was on pins. He watched Amelia like a hawk, smiling when she looked down, clearly about to crumble – this was it, the answer he’d been after for weeks of hell –

“Absolutely fucking not.” Amelia looked up, gleeful. “Oh! Sweetheart! You thought that was going to be it, didn’t you?! The big answer!” She started laughing. “No, no… nothing like that. I just didn’t want people to forget I existed. That’s all.” She cried with laughing, but her tears fell openly, since her hands were chained too tightly to the table in front of her.

“Notoriety? That’s why you did it?”

“Yes. Well, no – that’s not why I did all the bullshit. I mean, scaring people, making them a little bit afraid… it’s for nothing until people actively die. ‘Who stabbed me?’, ‘Who shot me?’, ‘Who blew up the Excelsior Building and took out five-mile radius with it?!’.” Amelia’s lips curled as she sat back.

“The Excelsior?!” Spielman felt his mouth water again. “Five mile radius…”

“On it, sir,” came Bale’s voice from the intercom. She’d already left before Spielman could reply. Spielman watched Amelia.

“Well,” he murmured. “You were stopped. We got you.”

“Yeah…” Amelia purred, leaning forward. She looked at his watch again, eyes gleaming as she started to mouth a countdown.

“What? What are you saying?”

“Three… two… one…”

Amelia started to cackle as the distant rumblings of a bomb went off. The room shook. They were inside the basement of the police headquarters, but there was absolutely no mistaking the soul-destroying rumble of the building on top of them collapsing. Because the Excelsior building was two miles away from them. Spielman paled.

“I hope Officer Bale didn’t make it out,” Amelia murmured. “I liked her.”

“You… everyone… k-killed –“

“Eh, if they were underground, they’re fine. I think. I don’t know.” Amelia chuckled. “But I know this. The world will know my name for this… and they’ll know yours, too, Spielman.”

“Why?” Spielman breathed.

“Because you weren’t there for your daughter when she needed you most…” Amelia licked her lip. “And because you were here with her now, you weren’t there for everyone else when they needed you most.” Spielman turned and threw up violently, sliding to the floor from the chair. “Poor daddy. If only you hadn’t abandoned me… Still, the world will never forget this…” Spielman looked up at her. “And you’ll never forget me. Will you, daddy?”