Riiing! Riiing!
Riiing! Riiing!
"Hello?"
"Hey, did I wake you?"
"Yeah."
"Sorry, man! I called as soon as I saw your messages."
"It's fine. I can sleep later... Mr. Sato gave me the day off."
"Rough day?"
"And a long night… I had to follow the detectives around like some guide."
"Speaking of that… are you positive?"
"Positive?"
"It means, are you sure?"
"I know what it means. Sure about what?"
"The serial killing thing."
"No! Of course not!"
"So we still don't know what we're dealing with?"
"Not really. But we did get one step closer."
"How so?"
"We know someone dumped both bodies in the ocean… and someone else chopped one up."
"But they're all connected?"
"Yes! That, I'm positive about."
"So what's next?"
"If the detectives are kind enough to keep me in the loop, maybe I can figure something out before more bodies show up."
"You know what I think? As bad as it sounds, more bodies might actually help the case. Someone's bound to mess up."
"And if they don't?"
"Then we're screwed anyway. But at least we'll know just how good these people really are."
"Three bodies, and we still don't have a clue… They know exactly what they're doing."
"Hmph… I'm trying to stay optimistic. My father always…"
"'Even the darkest night will end, and the sun will rise.'"
"Yeah… that's what gets me out of bed every morning."
"It's good to be positive… It's also good to remember we're dealing with something unprecedented."
"Goddaamn it… Alright, I gotta run. We'll catch up later!"
"Take care, Shimura!"
As he hung up, Daigo checked the time on his phone: 08:26. "That's too early…" he muttered. He pulled the blanket back over himself, reached for the closest book on his table, and started flipping through it, hoping the words would drag him back to sleep. He hadn't planned to read, yet he went through the pages like an autopilot. "I can't…" Daigo muttered, snapping the book shut. He tossed it aside and lay back, trying the classic stare at the ceiling until you pass out method. But his thoughts kept circling around yesterday's case and the horrible scene he had witnessed. "My wonderful job…" he sighed. Sleep clearly wasn't coming, but he still refused to give up. Not out of determination, but because on his days off, he usually did absolutely nothing. So wasting the morning wasn't exactly new to him. Daigo turned from one side to the other, trying to settle. Sleep refused to show up. He grabbed his phone again, checked the time, then set it aside. Thirty minutes passed.
Still nothing. "Weird…" he muttered. "Guess I really can't shut it off today." His mind was busy circling back to the case, the marks, the bodies. Everything looped around his head. But he refused to waste any effort on his day off, and his new position in the police force didn't give him the freedom to investigate independently. "Tough morning…" he sighed. He hated the idea of starting his day this early. He had no plan. He figured he might as well start with breakfast like everyone else. After years of living alone, Daigo had picked up all the basics he needed to survive. He could cook, clean, shop, do his laundry, and keep the place in order. He quickly prepared a breakfast of eggs and toast, ate it, cleaned the dishes, and then sat on his bed, wondering how he could possibly occupy himself for the rest of the day. First, he ruled out going out in any form. And whatever he planned to do, it certainly wouldn't involve anything exhausting. Daigo gave up on thinking about the bodies. There was no way he could solve that alone from where he stood. Suddenly, he remembered the clocks' dilemma, something he could lose an entire day researching. He stood up, grabbed his laptop, a notebook, a pen, then sat at the kitchen table. Computers came naturally to him. He knew where to go, what to search, and how to find whatever he needed. He had profiles everywhere, so all it took was logging in, checking the trends, and talking to random people online. Daigo scrolled through post after post. The clock issue wasn't trending, but a few people had mentioned it. He paused when a headline caught his eye: "Solid evidence! Pictures and videos of frozen clocks!" It was posted under the username "The Fantastic Four." Inside the folders were dozens of images and clips showing clocks frozen or twitching between 6:45 and 6:46. Daigo scrolled down to the discussion. At the top was a comment from a user with no profile picture, going by the name KinoKino.
The comment read: "My old programming rig completely shut down when time froze last Sunday… And from what I've heard, it wasn't just here. The same thing happened around the world. This stuff is a crazy phenomenon!"
The Fantastic Four replied, "We call it FTX... Or Frozen Time Experiment!"
Right under it, A user named J. Tipler posted another response. "Pretty nice name! LOL! But freezing time isn't the whole experiment…"
"What do you know about it?" The Fantastic Four replied again.
J. Tipler responded, short and vague, almost like he was choosing his words carefully, "Let's just say it's connected to a much bigger project… something tied to time travel."
No more replies from the Fantastic Fout. Under Einstein's comment, KinoKino jumped in, "Time travel? In Japan? You've gotta be kidding…"
"Believe it or not," J. Tipler replied. "Word is, someone's trying to develop a time machine."
A new username appeared under the last comment. Stein said, "So the guy who told you this… was he wearing a tin-foil hat or just cosplaying as one?"
No reply from J. Tipler. Daigo's attention had already started to drift by the time he reached the end of the thread. "Some people just talk to hear themselves," he muttered. He tapped on the profile of a user named Stein. Unsurprisingly, the guy had a habit of aggressively firing jokes at anyone who even mentioned time travel. Several of his comments had a large number of likes. One read: "Ah, yes, you're clearly a graduate of the School of I Saw It on the Internet."
"What a lunatic!" Daigo exclaimed, laughing. At the bottom of the page, there was a single post by Stein: "Some so-called scientists are trying to do something they clearly can't. They need to realize how dumb it is to think they can time-travel. Your parents and grandparents couldn't do it, and neither can you. Last Sunday was a disaster. If you really want to mess with the world, leave it to an expert!"
Daigo clicked on the post. Stein didn't come across as just a bully; either he actually knew something, or he was very good at pretending he did. Using an account named SillyBilly, Daigo commented: "Bold statement… maybe if they had managed to freeze time for even a minute last Sunday… next time, they might actually do more." As he hit "send," his phone buzzed. A reminder he had set for his afternoon coffee.