Sleuth of 2050

Chapter-1

The future

The year is 2050 and internet is readily available to everyone. Homicide has never been easier to get away with but an adroit and talented Sleuth James Chat is back on another case. This time a man by the name of Blake Jonathan has been murdered in cold blood at the new Times Square skywalk. James takes the elevator to the skywalk where police officers are waiting for him. James asks the officer, “Where is the M.O.B. hub.” The M.O.B. hub is a new grid-based system which with the help of A.I. can rebuild anything that happened in a certain area with only some corroboration, it needs some evidence to work with and positions then it can give an 80% accurate environmental anatomy of a region with precise timings on when the action happened and how it happened. M.O.B. has surely made the life of policemen and detectives a lot easier. James connects his contacts to the M.O.B. hub with the help of a key issued to him by the mayor. He downloads the layout and gets to work; he checks the crime scene for clues. The killer might have thought he had left no trace but James finds a nail clipping commensurate with the size of an ant. He checks the clipping with his contacts and the M.O.B network analyzes it. M.O.B. also could analyze indents and even the most diminutive features of the nail and could compare it with every CCTV camera recording at light speed which helps James narrow down targets. The M.O.B. hub pins down 32 people in the whole world who may be guilty. Then James with his contacts asks the voice assistant to play the M.O.B. generated A.I. prediction on what had happened. Edward uses his voice assistant and says, “Play the holographic prediction from the start.” Then in a trice, the hologram was generated and it showed the victim walking down the skywalk at 12:15 a.m. A man approaches him from behind and used a knife to stab the man but there was no blood as the knife was specially designed with nanotech particles which prevented bleeding. Then the man walks nonchalantly towards the lift and escaped. James then pauses to think and says to the voice assistant, “Rewind till I say stop.” The hologram then rewinds and then when the knife enters the victim’s body James says, “Stop.” James walks toward the hologram of the victim and says, “Magnify and analyze the implement used.” The assistant zooms in on the weapon and shows what type of weapon it was. It generates a hologram of the weapon. James asks, “Tell me about the knife.” The voice assistant replies, “The weapon according to my assessment is a nanotech knife programmed to preclude blood loss after impalement. The nanotech gets injected into the victim and the entry wound gets stitched immediately. The nanotech blocks the blood as well which causes 0% blood loss. The weapon doesn’t have to target a crucial point as the nanotech can reach crucial points after injection in few seconds as it uses blood flow to travel.” Then James asks, “Where can you buy this type of knife.” Then the assistant says, “Scanning the city CCTV grid, I can confidently say that the knife was handmade.” James then asks, “You said it blocks the blood with nanoparticles so can we extract the nanoparticles from the blood to trace them to their source.” The assistant replies, “Yes, but you need medical-grade engineered nanoparticles (ENPs) to explore the bloodstream.” Then James perceives that the only way to get the ENPs was to ask the mayor. The next day James goes to the mayor’s office and the mayor asks him, “So how is the case going detective.” James replies, “Good, but I need medical-grade ENPs to explore the victim’s blood to come up with a cogent conclusion.” The mayor replies, “Sure pick them up from the city hospital.” James thanks the mayor and was about to move out of the door when the mayor says, “We have moved the body to the city morgue.” James heaves with dejection as he doesn’t have good memories of the morgue and leaves the room. James reaches the hospital and grabs the ENPs from the nurse. He asks her, “Can they be used for extraction.” She replies, “Yes, just simply hook them up with a computer and tell them to find whatever you are looking for and with the power of computer vision they can find it readily.” James thanks the nurse and returns home to program the ENPs. He uploads much magnified images of the nanoparticles used in the knife. Even if the image is hazy, with the help of A.I. predictions, the ENPs can find and extract the target with ease. ENPs which mean engineered nanoparticles can be stored easily and transferred to someone’s bloodstream. They can extract or analyze information and are useful for doctors as well as detectives. James reaches the morgue and while looking for the victim’s dead body he finds the dead body of his mother, he tries to ignore it as best as he can. His mother’s death was the reason why he became a detective, when his mother was killed nobody was able to find her killer, and to prevent that fate for others he became a detective. While James was mourning his mother’s death a man wearing a monocle approaches him from behind and says, “You know sometimes we cannot predict the future even though a pitfall may be right in front of us. Opportunity can be taken from those who deserve it readily.” James squats down and replies while sobbing, “Trust me; life went very harsh on me.” The man looks James dead in the eye and replies, “Believe me it can be worse.” The man then walks away and James focuses up. James finally finds the body and asks his voice assistant, “Can you show me locations on his body where I can inject the ENPs so that they enter the blood flow.” And the assistant replies, “Yes, marking them on your contacts.” James then sees many veins and then he punctures a vein with his surgical knife. He takes a syringe and injects the ENPs inside Blake’s blood. The ENPs then returns after a few minutes and James takes back the ENPs. The voice assistant then says, “Nanoparticles of the knife were found and extracted; I have a route to the source.” Then James replies, “Tell me the route.” Then the assistant replies, “Apparently the knife is located in North Dakota, Fargo.” James enters his car and says to the assistant, “Take me to the location.” The car then enters a self-driving mode.

Chapter-2

Tricks and traps

James made his way to a gas station in Fargo and the contacts told him to go behind the gas station where a dumpster was located. James then asks the voice assistant, “Is this where the signal ends, inside the dumpster?” Just as James was about to open the dumpster the assistant says, “WAIT!” It was too late the dumpster had a bomb inside which explodes and on that day James was declared dead with his body lost. Months have passed and a new detective named Justin Michel has been hired who enters the mayor’s office. The mayor says to the detective, “Before James sadly passed away; he uploaded all the corroboration which he has gathered to me which I am sending to you.” Justin then replies, “I will analyze the data, sir.” Then the mayor says, “We usually don’t use tyros like you but due to James’s sad passing we have suffered a lot which has left us no option so don’t mess this up because we have one chance and one chance only. Whoever this killer is, he will be brought to justice.” After saying that the mayor pats Justin on the back and leaves the office. Justin heaves and also gets up. Justin spends nights analyzing the data and decides to go to the place where James was blown up. Justin arrives there and asks the policemen inspecting the scene, “Where is the M.O.B. hub?” A policeman replies, “Check atop of the gas station.” Justin goes inside the gas station where a man was wearing a monocle and a man was reading a magazine inside the store. He asks the woman working at the gas station, “Can I get a ladder?” While asking the question he shows his ID card. The woman replies, “Of course, let me get one from the back.” While waiting for the ladder the man wearing the monocle says to Justin “Shame the old detective was killed here.” Then Justin replies, “Yes, what a tragedy.” The man then brings his hand forward and says, “I am Gordon by the way, Gordon Loft.” Justin looks behind himself in a very leery way but only sees the man reading the magazine who seemed to be invested, then after perusing Justin shakes Gordon’s hand and says, “I am Justin Michel, nice to meet you.” The gas station woman brings the ladder; Justin takes the ladder and thanks her in return. Justin uses the ladder to climb up the gas station and use the M.O.B. hub. He connects the M.O.B. hub to his contacts and starts to investigate the crime scene. According to Justin’s study on James’s evidence, there was a nanoparticle knife for which James was after which most likely had the bomb strapped to it so if he could get a reconstruction of the environment he would know what had happened to that knife. Justin sees that there was a black imprint on the concrete so he scans the imprint which would help him know more about the blast. He then tries to find fragments of the dumpster that exploded. He found many scraps of the dumpster but no knife so with the scraps and the black imprint on the concrete he thinks he has enough corroboration to perform an environmental reconstruction. He plays the reconstruction from the start in which he sees James opening the dumpster. He says to the voice assistant, “Pause and zoom in on the dumpster.” The assistant zooms in on the dumpster where Justin sees the knife. Justin then says to the voice assistant, “Now track the knife and see where it goes.” As the nanotech knife blew up it got scattered into pieces and the voice assistant marked all those scraps on Justin’s contacts. Justin couldn't view the full reconstruction to know what happened to James's body. Justin starts to gather the scraps one by one and analyzes them. The knife was made by ENPs but something was different when Justin analyzed them with his contacts, the contacts couldn’t recognize them. Justin perceived that whoever made this nanoparticle knife had a good idea about ENPs. While analyzing the wreckage Justin finds a pen drive which by the looks of it is surprisingly intact. Justin was about to open his car door but he hears something behind him. He looks back but there is nothing. Justin drives to his motel and by now it has been midnight.

Chapter-3

The Crackdown

Justin arrives at his motel and was about to plug in the pen drive but then he heard the door quickly open and close. Justin looks behind himself to see a man rushing towards him with a knife and he was about to stab him. The man plunges the knife forward and Justin closes his eyes but then hears an uproarious thud like someone was hit by a metal pipe. Justin opens his eyes and sees James in front of him and the murderer on the ground knocked out. Justin couldn’t comprehend what was happening. James says to Justin, “Don’t tell anyone what happened today and take this filth to the mayor.” Then Justin asks, “Are you just going to leave without giving me an explanation.” James replies, “I can’t keep following this vocation so I faked my death to leave this job and help you solve one last case.” As James was about to exit the motel through the window Justin asks him, “Don’t go I need answers, how did you survive and how on God’s green Earth do you know my location or how does he know my location? As a matter of fact, why would you quit now of all times?” Then James replies, “All I can say is I can’t keep jeopardizing my life for this trifling job and I am not a detective anymore. This wasn’t the murder of Blake Jonathan but rather an attempt to lure me out for an assassination. You need to carry the weight of New York now detective; I have faith in you detective, prove you are not a tyro, goodbye.” Justin then says, “Before you go can you—.” before Justin could complete his sentence James was gone. Looking at the murderer Justin perceived that he was the same man he met at the gas station and when Justin shook his hand, he must have put a tracker on him. The next morning Justin brings the culprit to the mayor. According to the mayor's government files, this man’s real name is Tyler Jacobs. The mayor shows Justin the files on Tyler and the mayor asks Justin, “Do these match your hypothesis?” Justin replies, “Everything is correct according to me. He is an ENPs specialist.” The mayor adds, “He endeavored to become a detective and he was in the same batch that James was in.” Justin says in an inquisitive voice, “That’s odd.” The mayor asks Justin “Is something wrong?” Justin replies, “No but can you arrange an interrogation session with him.” The mayor assents to an interrogation session. The next day after interrogation, Justin was called to court to give the final crackdown. Justin says to the judge, “I believe that this wasn’t the murder of Blake rather the murder was just a feint to draw out Detective James and assassinate him. Our culprit also wanted to be a detective and was in the same batch as James. Tyler mastered in ENPs and used them to make one of the most high-tech knives designed solely for murder. This was another story of revenge. James became a detective but Tyler didn’t and most likely James became the reason why he didn’t succeed.” After giving the crackdown James told the mayor to meet him outside the court after the case is done. The mayor came behind Justin while he is watching the sunset and says, “You sure have become the new greatest detective in NYC.” Then Justin says, “That’s great but I am here to talk about the old one.” Then the mayor replies, “So you found out.” Then Justin asked, “Why did you just let him walk away?” The mayor then replies, “He was a coward in my opinion and I even tried to convince him but he opted for a life where he could live away from society. But yes I do understand his pain; times have changed and so have the intentions of people. When you serve 30 years unflaggingly to such a tiring cause eventually it will catch up to you, he let his mother die and then knowing your own life is not safe is hard so I thought I should let him go and help him in faking his death. I apologize for calling you a tyro before but I see that you are ready to be the Sleuth of 2050.”

Epilogue

1 day after the case of Blake was solved two teenagers by the name of Jonathan and Marcus are researching the disappearance of James Chat. Jonathan says to Marcus “I don’t think James has been killed yet there is something more to this.” Marcus replies “We both have been reading articles about the legend since we were eight and he has gone through thick and thin so he can’t just disappear like magic.” Then Jonathan says to Marcus “There is something deeper maybe James just wanted to retire due to the amount of pressure on him by which he was encumbered. Walking away and retiring is very hard due to the public’s keen eye on cowards.” Then Marcus replies “Such a top-class detective retiring, how is that possible.” Both Jonathan and Marcus read files and articles to find anything about the case. They use AI technology to sift through over one million documents with an industrial-grade computer. Jonathan says to Marcus “I found the motel where Justin stayed the night before the case was solved. I believe Justin couldn’t have solved the murder himself so he must have met with James inside the motel and we have found exactly the room in which Justin stayed due to the industrial-grade computer which we built when we were thirteen.” Marcus replies “Let’s drive there shall we.” Then Jonathan says “Let’s make it quick so we can return in the morning because my parents will be mad if they found out that we are meeting up at our hideout instead of sleeping. Both of them go to the motel in which Justin stayed in their car which they won in an international science fair. They made their way to the motel which was currently open. Marcus says to the receptionist “Is room number 4 vacant.” The receptionist replies yes and Marcus asks her to show them the room. While following the receptionist to the room Jonathan uses their jargon to tell Marcus to distract the woman. When Jonathan enters the room Marcus says to the receptionist “Mam can you tell me something.” Saying that Marcus begins a conversation with the receptionist while Jonathan closes the door and looks for any vestiges. Jonathan pulls out an A.I fingerprint finder. Jonathan looks for fingerprints and finds many but according to the software; none of them match except the one on the window pane. The fingerprint was of James and Jonathan becomes shocked to see that. Just then the receptionist was about to open the door but Marcus pulls her arm and stops her. Jonathan looks inside the closet where he finds a bent metal pipe with James’s fingerprints. On the coat hanger, there were Justin’s fingerprints. Now Jonathan had all the intricacies he needed but the receptionist opened the door and just as Marcus thought they were going to get caught. Jonathan quickly hid everything and said to the receptionist “Unfortunately I don’t like the room.” The receptionist replies “Well that’s fortunate because you are being kicked out because you good-for-nothing kids are perverts.” The woman kicked both of them out of the motel and Jonathan asks Marcus “What did you do?” Marcus replies “I don’t know, try to help you.” Then Jonathan replies “I wonder what you did to that woman that she called us perverts but anyway, I got the information we need and James is alive.” Jonathan then says that most likely Justin came back to his motel and hung his coat but then was attacked by Tyler. James came from behind and knocked out Tyler saving Justin. James then finally escaped through the window and landed on the roof. Marcus then asks “So we are going to check the roof for more corroboration?” Jonathan then replies “Yes, just boost me up there.” Both then sneak to the lawn where Marcus boosts Jonathan atop the roof. Marcus says to Jonathan “Careful up there.” Jonathan replies “You should run as the receptionist might come back. Jonathan gets atop the roof and finds miss placed tiles. He examines them and concludes that James slid down the roof of the lobby from the first floor into the parking lot. Jonathan then calls Marcus to help him get off the roof. He says to Marcus “Here I come, please catch me.” When Jonathan falls Marcus catches him. Jonathan says to Marcus “We need to analyze the parking lot for tire marks.” Marcus then says “I found out that James drove an old Harley Davidson and since I am sort of a car guy I will be able to find them.” Then Jonathan replies “It’s a shame we don’t have those M.O.B contacts, we would be real detectives if we had those.” Marcus then finds faint tire marks and says “It looks like his bike went to the left of this parking lot, do you have your phone so we can click a picture so that the A.I can track those tracks.” With the help of Jonathan’s phone, both get in their car and follow the tire marks. The tire marks stopped at a bridge. Both of them go under the bridge where Marcus by his movie knowledge presses a lose rock. That opens the doorway and both of them make their way inside where they go down a flight of stairs. Inside they find a fully furnished house. They hear the TV so they go to the living room. Jonathan from behind a wall peeks inside the living room where he sees James watching TV. Marcus says to James “Hello?” James quickly gets up and grabs his pistol and aims it at Marcus while Jonathan also makes himself visible to James. James says to both of them “Tell me one good reason that I shouldn’t shoot you two.” Jonathan replies “Because we are kids.” Then James replies “You know what you two are very smart for kids, I will give you that.” Marcus then says “We are your partisans and we just want to talk.” Then James allows them to sit on his couch and says to them “First of all you don’t tell anyone what is going to happen and second of all how did you find me.” Marcus then replies “We accept the first thing but for the second thing we want some answers.” James then tentatively says “Fine but don’t tell anything.” Jonathan then asks “How did you exactly survive.” James replies “Just as the bomb was about to go off, I jumped and saved myself.” Then Marcus asks “Why did you fake your death.” James replies “There was too much pressure.” Jonathan then adds “Pressure? Many people tried to assassinate you many times.” James replies “I won’t elaborate but now you hold your part of the promise.” Then Marcus asks “Elaborate first.” And then both of them keep saying the same thing. James tired of their nagging gets up and pulls the realistic mask off his face and reveals his real mutilated face. Both of them look away in disgust and realize that the blast had blown up James’s face which made it hard for him to see and hear. James says “Now you understand my pain. This body, face, stalkers, murderers, and ultimately this life is too much for me. Both of them tell how they found him and return home. They learned one lesson that day; you shouldn’t try to question someone who doesn’t want to answer as his/her answer will be too much or too little.