Reincarnated as an Energy with a System

“It said nothing about any diary in the investigation records. Did they ever find it?” Ning asked while looking through more documents.

“No, they didn’t. I told the officers back then about the diary but they had no idea what they were searching for.”

Ning looked through the images again. “Your father’s study was definitely ransacked for something. What did your father do again? It doesn’t say anything here.”

“He was a sort of PI,” Larissa answered. “Not the official kind. He just helped out the neighborhood from time to time. He trained to be a detective but apparently failed the drug test or something and could never use his talents on anything, so he started helping out the neighborhood for some small money here and there.”

“And the neighbors think he was with the wrong crowd because he hung around with them a lot, didn’t he?” Ning asked.

Larissa could only nod. She seemed hesitant to talk about it more than she had right then, so Ning looked through the details of the case, getting himself familiar with it.

One of the two people that were seen escaping the scene of the crime had cut themselves and had left behind a small pool of blood in the hallway outside. Sadly, the blood had not matched anyone in the past 15 years. No criminals had been caught with that DNA.

“You told me you had a suspicion on someone,” Ning said. “What brought on the suspicion?”

“I heard my father speaking to someone on the phone,” Larissa said. “He said something along the lines of helping the person with their unborn child, even if their enemy was a senator of the state.”

“As far as I’m aware, there are 81 senators in this country. How did you narrow it down to a single name?” he asked.

Larissa looked up from her documents for a moment and turned, pulling her chair closer to Ning to speak in a hushed tone.

“There are 81 senators, yes, but each city only has about 3 in total. My father took local work, so it could only be a local senator. Of those 3, Senator Grace Wyndham is a woman, who I crossed out instantly. The other two I considered for some time, until Senator Charles Bakes died and we found out posthumously that he had been infertile his whole life.”

“Ah! So that leaves us with…”

“Senator Rodney Pax,” Larissa said. “My father’s murderer.”

Ning nodded. “Have you found any evidence against him?”

“Not yet. I tried joining his security detail after I was done with the academy, but he didn’t take fresh recruits. Had to pivot here instead.”

Ning nodded. “I see. I’ll try to keep my eyes and ears out. Do you think the person your father was trying to help had this senator’s child?”

“I think so.”

“Do you think she was raped?”

“No, the woman was a prostitute, so it’s more likely she just got pregnant on the job,” Larissa said. “But the senator couldn’t have a hooker giving birth to his child. That’s not right for his image.”

“And the woman?”

“Dead. She apparently overdosed on painkillers,” Larissa said. “I couldn’t find more.”

They fell silent afterward, searching through the files on their own. After a while, Mira came bursting through the door.

“You were right, sir Valen,” she said. “That bastard was indeed here.”

Ning and Larissa got out of their seats. “We had an intruder on the network?”

“Yes. He was even listening to our conversations, I think. He wasn’t here when I flushed the network but had been here until I decided to search for him. I think he learned what we were doing and bolted.”

“Hmm…” Ning narrowed his eyes. “Did you find anything helpful?”

“Nothing,” she said. “He had his network routed through multiple instances, making it hard to trace.”

“Just like the money,” Ning said. “Keep searching. And let me know if he shows up again. We need to improve the security around here.”

Mira nodded and hesitated.

Ning looked at her. “What?”

“I can’t say I didn’t find anything,” she said, pulling out her tablet. “I found this.”

She showed some sort of text file that was filled with nothing but numbers.

“What’s this?” Ning asked.

“When I went to clear out everything, I found this under the filename ‘For the Vampire Killer’. I believe that’s you.”

“But it’s just numbers,” Ning said. “Is this a hidden message? Do you think you can decrypt it?”

“I would need to know what sort of encryption algorithm was used first. And then I need to find the key.”

“Do you?” Ning asked.

Mira paused. “No, but it would make things much easier. Otherwise I would be trying to break through this thing for days probably.”

“Hmm,” Ning thought for a moment. “What do you think a key is? A phrase or a word?”

“Could be. Could be a combination of letters and numbers,” Mira said. “I have no way of telling.”

Ning sat on his seat, thinking. If someone was trying to send a message, why would they bother hiding it first? Was this their version of a test? What were these apostles trying to accomplish?

“Try… Tritus.”

“Okay…” Mira quickly got on the computer and tried various algorithms with the key ‘Tritus’ to go with it. She couldn’t find anything that worked.

“So, not something about them, but rather about me,” Ning said as he considered what it was about him that those people would know.

‘He has been watching me for the past few days. He knows who I am,’ Ning thought. ‘So my name?’

“No…” Ning sat up straighter. “Try… Blackfang.”

Mira nodded and quickly tried Blackfang as the key to a few different algorithms. On the third try, the result spat back something legible.

The moment it came, Mira shouted in excitement. “It worked. That was the key.”

“Blackfang?” Larissa turned toward Ning.

“I had a feeling he cared about my hero status,” Ning said. “So, what does the message say?”