"The InfoMat23 is an open source information and data storage device. With its reliability and affordability, it is a popular choice of the standard working class citizen to effeciently get work done. It is prided on its simple interface, accessability and charm. If one takes care of their InfoMat, its life expectancy can exceed human years of life." - Manufacturer's description.
Viktor Brandt is a freelance investigator, with experience in both police and intelligence fields. His expertise revolves around his home, Rheinland, but has gradually been prying his work into the Omegas. He is 34 years of age, but still keeps up to speed in the crime scene through a heavy reliance on news, media and connections. While independent, Brandt has a strong moral compass that tries to mix both idealism and realism, which is commonly used to expose a criminal underworld or the corruption of government, when applicable. Since his involvement with the HVEB case in Harburg City, Brandt has taken a step back from the limelight of investigation and instead chosen to settle into a more fixed lifestyle.
0.2 Employment History
Current, since 821 A.S:
-Independent Investigator, contracted by the Counter-Terrorism Initiative.
Previous, prior 821 A.S:
-Oberinspektor for the Buro der Marineintelligence (BDM)
-Minor Officer in the Police Reserves.
One moment, you're in your fake apartment, with a fake named terrorist, acting like a fake man to save your fake life. The next? She shoves you into the garage, arms bound and cuffed until she returns. Then the witch does, and you tosses you onto the frozen surface of Hamburg, all alone, with a week's rations. As you fall onto your final moments, your eye sight turns dark, then pulses into blurring white. Back and fourth, in a perpetual cycle, until finally the light mellows into the yellowish torchlight your familiar to. You hear them calling your name, cooing through the filters of your mind, with that muted quality that makes everything sound like you're whispering through water.
"Brandt, Brandt!"
And suddenly, I'm awake.
There's one of them shaking me by the shoulders, another one in front of me, shining a bright light into my eyes, another one sits at a table, taking notes. I'm back at the Counter-Terrorism Initiative Headquarters, my body flimsy and weak. I try to speak, but only gurgle a few, incomprehensible words out. They tell me to take it easy, I try to respond, with little to no success. The man holds my shoulders steady for longer while I readjust my position. I shut eyes briefly while I feel my body kick back into action. I open them again with a response, finely loud and clear.
"I'm fine."
"Clearly not, Brandt." A grunting voice replies. "We found you bound in a garage like an animal. One of the contacts we sent you to investigate was shot, and the one we sent you to arrest vanished into thin air. Stunning effort on your behalf."
My mind raced for a moment while I revisited the mission I was on. The memory emerged from the clout of the darkness and into the forefronts of my mind. I was sent to Harburg City to quell the HVEB's actions. In the process of being undercover, I was hunted down by a mysterious woman, who held me hostage in my own apartment. Her name momentarily sat on my lips, only to be lost in a heartbeat. She locked me up, left me for dead.
"As such, we're terminating our contract with you until further notice. Maybe if something petty, like a bread thief, pops up, we'll give you a call." Then they sent me on my way.
It wasn't until later when I had made it back home to Heisenberg that I started think about it. About Harburg, about the HVEB, about the CTI. I leaned on my desk, coffee on the table, papers spread everywhere, with their meticulous details about missing persons, suspected criminals and robberies. You can take the boy out of the investigation, I thought, but you can't take the investigation out of the boy.
Suddenly, the name was before me, as clear as day. I wrote it down in thick black marker. Jane, that was the name.
"As you can see, Timm, I've been dedicating much of my time to looking for this Jane woman." I unlocked my apartment and stepped in, headed straight for the kitchen to put my groceries down. "It's tireless work, but sometimes the most rewarding work is the stuff that keeps you up at night, ya know?"
Timm shuffled into the room, eyes wide in horror as he scanned the walls, all of which were full of news articles of people named Jane. A Jane Lobe went missing in 789 A.S. Jane Ehman, who won a money award for her work in the science fields. Another Jane, who managed to beat the record for amount of cats owned. A wide cast of strange and elusive Janes, all of which decorated my apartment like art. Well, at least I thought it was art, Timm seemed to be frightened.
"Don't you think this is all a bit... obsessive?" he asked as he prepared his drawing easel. I looked up from the fridge.
"Well, I mean, she left me for dead on the surface of a frozen planet. Oh! Then proceeded to kill about thirty thousand people." I moved the objects around the fridge to make more room. "Sometimes, obsession is healthy."
It had been a week since I was fired from the CTI and started my investigation. I scoured every single instance of odd behaviour from any woman named Jane. I kept working with words: articles, events or reports. I realized that if I wanted to truly catch such a strange woman, I would need to utilize all of my memory. I called Timm, an artist who had previously worked for the Polizei in sketching the faces of the accused. I knew him back from my officer days, and it was only a quick call to get him to come over.
"You all set up?" I asked, he nodded, and I came over.
"Uh so," Timm said, holding a pencil in his hand "start with the shape of her face." I reflected upon that night in Harburg, as the hail began to fall down outside. I remember she had dropped her scarf to the floor and I saw her face. She had a blocky face, with a triangular chin. It was really quite unremarkable, in hindsight.
"Got it, so how about her hair? What can you tell me about that?" It was black, but it caught on the light, making it look a dark, murky green. It was long, coming down just below her shoulders. It was also wild and stuck out on her head. It seemed coarse, almost as if it hadn't been taken care of for quite some time.
"Moving along, what was her skin colour?" She was a typical Rheinlandic Caucasian, with that light toned skin, almost pale.
"So, her face..." Suddenly, the memories came flooding back into my mind. Her eyes were large, a light brown perhaps? Her nose was slim, and streamlined straight up her face. Her lips were of average size, with her bottom lip sticking out somewhat. Timm finished his drawing, adding small details here and there, then finally spun the picture around to meet my eyes. It was damn near perfect, he had captured my oozing memory of her with perfect clarity. I thanked him, payed him, and sent him on his way.
Later that night, I scanned the image, then posted it to the wall. I stood back and smiled at the progress I had made. I muttered under my breath, the words filled with malcontent and vengeance. "Obsession, thy name is Jane."
When I was a child, I used to sit atop of the hills of Hamburg, in the brief spring, and roll rocks down the hillside on our property. I remember being fascinated by the way the rock sped up at first, all of its rough edges smoothing into a soft blur of grey as it trampled down the slope and onto the flat ground. It would go from a ragged stone, to a speeding blotch of grey, then slowly return to its original form. I watched it slow down as it hit the plateaus, and then eventually stop. Once a quick paced bullet, now reduced to a still object, forever caught in the lapse of time. I tried not to think of it, and rolled another rock down the hill.
Now, standing here over my table of notes and figures at one in the morning, I can't stop thinking about those rocks. Once upon a time making progress and going forward, now just a lumbering, still hunk of mass.
The weeks following had been hard on me. I started to narrow down the search on the elusive Jane. Removed all the fair, blonde women. Tossed out all the ones that were spotted speeding once or twice. Forgot about the Jane's that were clean record. There were entire days where progress was hasty and on track, now all my work has boiled down to the grime at the bottom of the pot, the sludge that the heat has brought fourth from the bountiful amounts of liquid. A cork-board on the wall, fashioned with pictures of Jane look-a-likes, all connected with red string. Maps with highlighted locations where she has been sighted. News reports on Harburg. Mugshots of similar criminals. It was all beginning to clear in front of me, but at the same time, began to cloud and turn my vision jaded.
My phone buzzes. Lights flicker, stomach growls, eyes droop. Concentration, I have found, is not a commodity that is as easily bought and sold as alloys or food. It is a product of motivation, alongside other things, such as hydration and being well fed. All of these things are starting to become sand to me, slipping through my fingers and being caught in the wind. My mind follows those sparkling trails into the dark, and there is little that I can do to stop it. I fall back onto my couch, and let my eyes roll back into my head, and sleep take its deadly hold on me.
For a moment, I'm caught in the tumbling darkness, losing my footing. The darkness clears and I'm caught between two looming Harburg towers, the snow gradually building and the air being heavy and filled with smog.
"What am I doing here?" I ask out loud. The noise warbles through the air, rebounding off of every building and returning to me as an echo. A light switches on behind me and beams down from above. I turn, and there she is.
"Good question..." And I know where this is going. She's illuminated in the light, with all her features intimidatingly casting a shadow that engulfs me. As she speaks, her hand reaches to her face, grabbing an invisible corner of an invisible cloth.
"...what are you doing..." And with a swift hand movement, she tears her face away, revealing a familiar old face.
"...Herr Brandt?" And before me, looking solemn and wearisome is Cristofer. Cristofer with his innocent look. He collapses to the ground and I run to him. As I fall to the ground next to him, my hand glides over the bullet wound, staining my hands with a dark red blood that slowly begins to paint my hands. He stares at me, in pain. Breathing heavily, he whimpers to me.
"You're no better than I am." And again, Cristofer is gone, and Jane is laying in the snow, smiling a villainous, blank expression. Her hand, snaps from her sides and in a heated moment, she draws a knife and carves a grueling line across my neck. I fall to the snow, slowly being dragged into the ground. Her voice follows me, drifting down into my sinkhole.