The Jita Ripper - Part 2 - The Cover-up

Marcus checked the factory control panel. Everything was ready. He saw Gren checking the lines below. A few more minutes and it would be over.

He let his mind drift back to the weekend. It was going fine, just like it had a dozen times before. He had found a case of expensive looking antique Minmatar ceremonial daggers. He was just looking at one when he heard a noise behind him. She'd woken up. Even with enough drugs to fell a Brutor Commando she'd come round. She had charged at him like a mad woman. She ran into him and the knife he was holding had slid into her. She'd backed off and fallen over. He'd assumed dead.

The smelter indicated that it was up to temperature, the tritanium was now molten.

He had stood over her body. He'd never seen a dead body before. She still looked beautiful, naked and with a knife sticking from her abdomen. He'd gone back to looting the room, surprised how little the event had unsettled him. After about twenty minutes she had come round. She hadn't died, but she was badly hurt. She started pleading for him to save her, that she'd not tell the police, she'd not rat him out just as long as she got medical attention. He'd gone over and knelt by her. She was in pain, she was in terror, and it had excited him. When he pulled the knife out and she'd screamed and he felt something inside him spark. When he raised the knife to finish her she'd put her hand up to protect herself. As the knife plunged through her hand and she screamed again, that spark turned to a rush, a feeling that had spread over him. He had then taken his time, he'd never felt more alive.

"Check! Check! Is the smelter offline?" Gren's voice broke Marcus' concentration.

"Yeah, all safe. Get your ass in there."

Marcus watched Gren enter the mould on the factory floor. The forge-line start-up scan had reported a foreign object in the mould and it would have to be removed before the line could start. Gren had gone down to the floor to check. Marcus hit the dump command and several tons of molten refined veldspar fell into the mould below.

Marcus was slightly disappointed as he never heard anything from Gren, just the hiss of the hot metal. The only person who knew about his activities impersonating a capsuleer on the station in orbit above had just been vaporised.

-o0o-

One week later.

Inspector Avi entered Chief Inspector Chan's Office.

"Avi, what have you found?"

"Well sir, he struck again this weekend. A 24 year-old Caldari woman. He's..... well sir, he's evolving."

"Go on."

"The initial MO appears the same. She picked him up in a bar, took him back to her quarters. They made love, he drugged her. That's where the similarities end."

Inspector Avi placed a small holoprojector on Chan's desk. It sprung into life. It showed a hologram of a woman tied spread eagle to a bed.

"My god!" the Chief Inspector exclaimed. "What the hell did he do to her. Where are her....."

"He cut them off sir and took them with him. We think he kept the dagger from his first murder. He took two hours to kill her. Over 150 wounds."

The Chief Inspector reached over and turned the holoprojector off.

"Thanks for that Avi. That will give me nightmares for a week."

"Sir, we need to warn people. We need to get the message out there."

"What? That we've got a nutter who loves seducing women before slicing them up slowly? The CEO has said we must keep this under wraps, we cannot have any negative press. The Goonswarm attack on the local traders has left people wondering if Jita is still the best place to do business in the cluster. Something like this could drive people to Dodixie or Amarr. You need to find this guy before he strikes again." The Chief Inspector didn't sound convinced himself.

"You’re kidding? We bury the truth from the public because it might affect profits?"

"It's not that simple. Our stock isn't doing too well and neither is the war against the Gallente. The last thing the Caldari Navy needs is people associating our name and this station with some lunatic after that Goonswarm attack. First 'Burn Jita' then a serial killer on the loose? We can issue warnings for women to be on guard. We don’t bury the truth, we just don’t tell them everything."

Inspector Avi shook his head.

"So we post warnings about a con-artist but don't tell the women of this station that his new favourite hobby is slowly slicing them up and hacking off their..."

"Look!" the Chief Inspector cut him off "I don't like it any more than you. But those are our orders. Look, I've got enough on my plate trying to control the flow of information. That pirate news network, Tech4News, has already run with the first victim’s story. If they get hold of news of this latest victim, who know what shit-storm that will be caused. On top of that, the board has allegedly hired a private investigator to do his own parallel investigation."

“Oh fantastic” Avi exclaimed “That’s all we need, some private dick on the case too getting in the way!”

“Well that’s the situation we have to live with, just find this guy Avi, before he strikes again.”