Downward

One Day Later It was just as bad as Special Agent Tricia Masters had imagined it - maybe worse. The big pieces of the shooting had fallen into place quickly. The car's plates had gotten them to a registration and drivers license in Texas with a photo that matched the body they had in the morgue. Home address, records of the gun purchase, they'd found the serial numbers scratched at but still easily matching the records that the gun shop was required to hold on to. Of course there was also Dick. Robert Hastings to be more precise, although from working with him in the past Tricia had come up with her own nick name: Hasty Dick. Texas had lots of special agents, but Tricia had been worried that this would land on the Dick's desk, and sure enough just moments after confirming the gunman had lived in Texas she got a call from Dick, pulling rank. "Look we have the bigger field office down here in Dallas" he said in his southern drawl. FBI policy was clear and Tricia knew that for all of Dick's stupidity and sloppiness he was a grade A ass kisser. If it came down to her or him the director would choose Dick. And so it was that Tricia watched with a frustrated bemusement from her office as a press conference was held. "Hello, I'm FBI Special Agent Robert Hastings. As you're no doubt aware, yesterday at 1:15 PM a gunman entered the Southview Mall with a semi-automatic weapon and killed 4 individuals before being shot by local police. At this point in time we're ready to release the identity of the suspect as Mr. Shaun Bennet of Dallas Texas. We know from investigations conducted by Dallas FBI field office that Mr. Bennet left Dallas late the afternoon before and drove north through the night, stopping to purchase the weapon and ammunition. At this point in time we are still searching for clues on what may have motivated Mr. Bennet as well as any ties he may have had to extremist groups. The FBI would ask that if you have any information on Mr. Bennet to please reach out to us at the tip line that's been provided." "PING!" Tricia's computer let out a soft chime, she muted the TV. Shaking her head at the extremist line. There was nothing that would suggest this was anything more than a troubled individual, leave it to Hasty Dick to suggest to the press that there may be. Turning her attention to the computer Tricia typed some commands to open the report that had been generated. To most people the small text listing off websites with various numbers would have been incomprehensible, one of the analysts had asked to take a few days to get the output all cleaned up but Tricia had told them not to bother, anyone who cared would learn to read the raw output and Tricia cared, after all this was her baby. The output Tricia scrolled through was the result of years of work during her undergraduate computer science and criminology masters. It represented a finger print of sorts, pulled from common sites all over the web. The team from Dallas had demanded the gunman's phone and were now waiting on various approvals and vendors to get the thing unlocked. Never mind that Tricia had assembled in her little field office the best the FBI had as computer forensics. In Dick's view of the world this was a gunman, maybe a terrorist, the phone and earbuds, it would all be secondary evidence – it was a ridiculous thought that in todays age anything could not be considered a computer case. Tricia had told a previous director as much on one occasion a few years ago, she had been lucky then to have been low level enough to have not been fired on the spot. Then of course she'd been vindicated, or at least she felt she had, when her digital fingerprinting technique had identified the accomplice for a gunman in Wyoming who the FBI hadn't even known existed. That had earned Tricia enough credit to setup this little field office and recruit the top computer forensic analysts the FBI had to it. At the time she'd thought it best to be at her own small office, no meddling from the less computer literate agents, but it was times like this when her little office could be bossed around by people like Dick that she wondered if it wouldn't have been better to stay in Washington. As Tricia examined the Fingerprint a few things jumped out to her. At first it followed a fairly common pattern, sites that catered mostly to the interests of middleschool and highschool boys, sports, video games, and girls. The sites started to turn more academic over the last 4 years. They'd already known that Shaun Bennet had gotten an engineering degree at UT Dallas, he'd graduated that spring, only 4 months earlier. This online pattern matched what Tricia had seen from other people in college programs like that. Then about 3 months ago, right after graduation things started to take a turn, the volume of activity started to drop off, at first gradually then all of a sudden zeroing out. Except for occasional spikes that towered over any previous activity volume. He wasn't offline, the spikes were more indicative of someone who was chronically online, probably drunk or high. The dips where what worried Tricia, her program had ways to find most online presence but not all of it, most likely Shaun had been pulled into some sort of dark web, something she couldn't see. "Maybe it was terrorism", she thought to herself bemusedly. One Day Before Shaun Bennet woke up at 5am his phone buzzing on the nightstand. Pressing the big red stop button he rolled out of bed, dropped to the floor and started to do pushups. In high school he'd never been in that good of a shape, more interested in watching sports than playing them. It was only since the beginning of the summer that he'd started to take his body seriously. Gone was the binge drinking and occasional Marijuana use from university, he had gone fully sober, cut out all the processed foods and was living off of a diet of mostly boiled chicken and rice. He could make a big batch easily a few times a week, and pack it with him when he was out driving. Shaun pulled on some reasonably clean clothes, grabbed his phone and earbuds and headed out. He liked to get out of the house he shared with a few room mates before they woke up, he didn't really know them well, other than the kitchen which he used to cook they didn't really share any space or interests. He would always try to get the morning deliveries, these usually had a bigger tip, things people had ordered the night before realizing they'd need them first thing in the morning. Shaun could get them as stores opened and have them waiting on people's porches when they woke up. He liked that it had a magical feel to it, like he was Santa Claus. Throwing his beatup phone on the dock and connecting it to the car's bluetooth Shaun flipped through the delivery apps, he rejected the pickups that were close by, he didn't mind driving a little further, what he didn't want to do is wait. Waiting was how the system robbed you, you didn't get paid for waiting. "Perfect" he said out loud, a 6am pickup 20 minutes away, putting the Camary in drive he hit the navigate button on his phone and then switched over to his podcast player and hit the play button there. It was time to start his morning. By 10:30 the next delivery had gotten to the point where Shaun logged off, too far, too much time waiting, not a big enough tip. He pulled the Camary into a parking lot where he knew he wouldn't be disturbed and cut the engine. He had an app on his phone that was helping him to adapt to a multi-modal sleep schedule. He'd read about a team of researchers in Brazil who were studying the sleep habits of previously uncontacted tribes in the rainforest. The natural sleep habits of humans before industrialization and corporate demands forced us to all accept an restless 8 hour night. At this point Shaun had fully adapted to the more natural schedule, five 1 hour naps spread throughout the day. After each one he'd wake up, do pushups, and eat food the routine was a signal to his body that it was safe, that it was time to go-out and hunt. Hitting the start button on the sleep app he reclined his chair, closed his eyes and fell asleep. After an hour Shaun woke up to the bird chirping sounds that the app played, part of the natural rhythm living in his genetic code. He opened his lunch box pulling out the stainless steel container with his chicken and rice. The lunch rush was starting soon and if he didn't get his apps open he would miss out on the best deliveries. Before eating Shaun flipped through his phone, tapping the play button on his pod cast app. On the cracked screen a video played showing two men sitting across from each other at a table, between them an array of microphones and mixing gear, they started in on the news since this morning. At the bottom the current listener count: 1.6M, it held fairly steady as Shaun watched, listening, and eating his chicken and rice. 2:30pm was Shaun's next break, lunch had ended and it would be a while before people started asking for dinner to be delivered. As he parked his car he got a ping from his phone, a news notification clicking in he scanned through the story. It was about a small city a few states away called Southview. The city had gone all in on a big shopping mall a few decades ago, but with the rise in delivery apps and online shopping the mall had been hollowed out – emptied of stores and jobs. Speculation was that the mall would be bankrupt before the black friday rush could save it. With the mall gone the city would face ruin. Job losses would dry up the tax base, and what was worse is that the investment the city had put in, an actual financial stake in the business which would just be gone. Shaun hated this sort of thing, corporate interests screwing over everyone but themselves. The city would be in financial ruin but the owners and developers with their carefully shielded liability would get off scot free. Closing the news app Shaun started his sleep timer, reclined his seat, and closed his eyes. This time he didn't feel rested, he felt anxious from the news he was reading. The screeching of a howler monkey awoke Shaun, "Fuck" howler monkey was a danger sign, it had meant he'd slept in, he looked at the clock 4:30. "FUCK FUCK FUCK!" he shouted banging his head against the steering wheel. Why had he slept in, it was that stupid mall story, that stupid corporate greed. He tried to take a deep breath and reached into his lunch box to take out another box of chicken and rice. "what the fuck!" he said, his hand had felt wet. He opened the lunch box, a sharp bitter oder came from a liquid that filled the bottom. He grabbed the icepack feeling it's empty weight and then touched the glass containers with his next two meals in them. They were warm to the touch, the icepack must have broken. "FUCK!" shaun yelled opening his door and throwing the lunch box into the empty parking lot as hard as he could. It hit the ground hard with the dull sound of glass shattering. Trying to catch his breath Shaun dropped to the pavement and started to do pushups. 1, 2, 3, he couldn't concentrate, he climbed back into his car, and typed the name of the mall into the search box. The ai summary described the cities troubles and then below it gave him the location on a map. He clicked the map, 8 hours of driving, he'd be there by morning if he drove through with just one more rest. He clicked "Start Navigation" then put the car into drive and flipped over to a pod cast. Shaun hadn't left the parking lot when he slammed on the breaks. Under the podcast video feed there was a series of ads, one caught his eye for a local gun shop, in it the owner held what looked like an UZI. He clicked the link, it was a short video shot on a phone camera and heavily cut with the owner explaining the Polish made knockoffs of the UZI. Shaun searched for the gun, there were a few articles about it, some controversy about if it should be legal, and then a few shops that sold it. A couple of them were on the way to Southview.