Seek and find.

“Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone”

That was the quote that Phillip had found several times in sundry websites while making his new investigation, it seemed to be the motto of some sort of club. He became obsessed with finding out who were the members of that group and how to stop them.

Phillip was a hacker who specialized in discovering the dirty laundry of important people to blackmail them with that information. He knew that it was not the line of work his mother would want him to follow, but he found it morally okay so far. For him, threatening to reveal people’s secrets was, in fact, a good deed. It could go one of two ways: or the person got afraid and stop doing whatever he was doing, or Phillip had actual proof of awfully bad things to tell the police. His friend, Detective Molina, was always happy to receive this kind of information and look into it. Nevertheless, saying they were friends is a little exaggerated; Phillip considered him his friend, but they had never met in person; Phillip slid the envelopes under his door and detective Molina answered on an advertisement webpage with a secret language only they had knowledge of. This has been happening for four years.

Each one of these messages from Detective Molina ended with “Let’s meet”.  Phillip felt that he could trust his friend, however, he preferred not to risk revealing his identity, in the end, it was the only thing that could protect him.   

It was not the first time that he had found some compromising information about someone who eventually ended up in jail after the detective conducted an investigation based on what Phillip had given him. Their partnership had paid off, some bad people were sent to jail because of their felonies, and some not so bad people disbursed their money to keep Phillip quiet.

Nonetheless, this routine was about to change due to the last things, Phillip came across to.   

Following a very well-known businessman who allegedly was having an affair with his secretary, Phillip was able to find disturbing content this man shared online with colleagues. It involved a series of pictures, videos, conversations, of horrible, unimaginable things, that even Phillip, who thought he had seen it all, had been left completely perplexed. He knew he was going through a dark passage and that he probably should just drop it, but he also knew this was something big, and that perhaps, and luckily, he could take down a high-profile organization.  

“Seek and you shall find”

Four months had passed, and Phillip was still gathering information. He had discovered the identity of other three of the members of that group and had constructed a concept map to illustrate all the associations of this group with disappearances and the dates they occurred. Lately, he happened to disclose that these men used to attend meetings to discuss or do God knows what.

The secret meetings took place every four weeks, and Phillip had just found out where. He had planted a tracking device in the businessman’s car, it led to an abandoned building outside the city. If his suspicions were precise, this elite was committing horrible crimes, and he needed physical evidence to send to Detective Molina. At this point, Phillip was not sure what he wanted to accomplish, he only felt that it was his duty to do something.

The date came and Phillip went to the building some hours prior to the meeting, to sneak around the guards and get into. He had been already there a few days back and noticed they were not any security cameras outside, there were only two security guards at the front door. A message could be read on top of the door: “Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone”.

With gloves and balaclava on, he got into the building jumping through a window and hid, he would have to wait several hours for the guests to arrive. 

Men started to arrive at midnight, and they all directed to an auditorium on the underground floor. Phillip approached a small superior window and started to record. After a while, he was knocked by a huge hit in the head. He felt back, unconscious.

…

“Phillip, welcome to our meeting” said who seemed to be the leader.

Phillip realized he was on a chair in the middle of the room. Around twenty men were surrounding him.  

“Who are you?” said Phillip still dizzy.

“Don’t you know already?”

Phillip looked around, recognizing the four men he had been investigating lately.

“No.” he replied.

“Well, we know who you are and what you’ve been doing. As a matter of fact, we knew you were coming tonight, and we let you in”

“Before you kill me, there is something you should know” said Phillip trembling.

“Kill you?” said the man smiling. “Someone has been watching too many movies”. The laughter sounded like an echoed chorus intoned by everyone present in the room. Then he continued: “We don’t kill people, we straighten them, reform them if you will”

“Ha, really?” said Phillip. “Why do they disappear, then?”

“Phillip, Phillip, how could you think that? We are men of good, religious, we would not commit murder, ever! They disappear because they are given a new life, so they could be reborn, out of sin”

“What does it mean? What are going to do to me?”

“I know you consider yourself a good person, but what you do is nothing to be proud of. Do not judge, or you will be judged”

“Could you stop quoting the Bible? I am not proud of what I do, but at least I don’t disappear people!” he made a pause and then continued. “You better not hurt me, all the information I got from you is been already sent to someone, if something happens to me, you’re going down”

“Perhaps we should take a visit to Detective Molina, shouldn’t we?” Answered the man.

Phillip felt helpless. He feared for his life and his friend’s.

The man got closer to Phillip and then uttered: “We do not judge people or their actions, since we are aware of the devil’s presence in their minds. We only help them cure through… procedures. Do you see? There are parts of our brains or our bodies that make us sin, so we remove them”

“Please!” said Phillip crying. “I’m sorry”

…

Phillip woke up in an apartment he did not recognize.