The Florida Suicides Mystery (Clockwork, Woof)

On The 6 o'clock News
The TV briefly comes to life. The headline goes: "Students charged in Fraternity rape case found dead 2 days after acquittal."

"In local news, Spring Break has turned to Spring Horror, as the community is reeling tonight from the incredibly shocking and tragic deaths of four Harvard students on Spring Break at a local convenience store. The bodies of Kyle and Leon Hawthorne, Jacob Smith and Edward Carpenter  were found in the liquor aisle of the store by the cashier at around 2am Florida time."

"It was horrible... there was blood everywhere, they were lying in pools of their blood... I think one of them looked at me." Said a distraught cashier being interviewed at the scene, her eyes red from tears, voice hoarse from crying.

Back to the anchor. "The network has obtain footage of the event... and we'd like to warn viewers that the CCTV footage is highly graphic and disturbing."

The footage switches from the anchor to an overhead view of the convenience store where indeed four well-off looking young men in pastel long sleeves and rich kid shorts stood talking and laughing in the liquor isle when suddenly one of them grabs a bottle off the shelf, smashes it open and cuts his own throat with it. He falls to the floor dead, blood spilling onto the floor.

One by one the young men did the same, until all four lay dead on the spot.

"There is currently an investigation going on into the young men's families and backgrounds. Kyle Hawthorne is notable because he was recently acquitted of rape allegations of a freshman at his Fraternity's house on campus. The identity of the girl is not being released because she is a minor."

But judging from the footage obtained, as well as the testimony of witnesses, this senseless tragedy may have to be ruled as a mass suicide. The bodies of the men are being kept in state at the St. Andrew Memorial Home until their families come to claim them. This is Channel 7 News, we'll be back after a break."
At a hotel in Florida, a distraught family breaks down in shock at the news, clutching their daughter dearly...

The next evening... At a Florida hospital

Xiao thanks the nurse at the nursing station, then walks down the hall towards a door, the nameplate indicating this was the clinic of one Dr. Shauna Masters. The door to the clinic opens. The latina-american former superhero was now in a lab coat. Shauna sees a taller Asian lass in casual wear- a blue blouse and yoga shorts that stopped above her knee."Xiao! It's so nice to see you. Glad you made it, come on in." She exclaimed.

"Hello Shauna. Yes I suppose... And a checkup. And haircut." Xiao came inside Shauna's clinic at the hospital.

"Figures. Ellie is out of the country, as usual. That chick has no time for anybody except criminals."

Shauna has The dragon girl enter the office, then Xiao was guided into the work area. The wall was all one way glass, so they could see the hospital being busy outside but it was perfectly calm inside. The place was all white and sterile, a screen flickering to life. Xiao slowly lay down on her seat, relaxing. She looked over to see Shauna wearing a heavy industrial protection suit and welding mask.

Shauna pointed at the screen, which showed the area around Xiao's healed chest scar. "I'm happy to tell you that your injury is healing well and your skin density is back to its old, hard as diamond self... so I'll take the usual precautions."

"Of course." Shauna brings out the liquid nitrogen canisters, and uses a small blower to freeze a bit of Xiao's hair she intended to remove. Then she uses a diamond grinder to take it off. The work proceeded to the sound of a grinder slowly cutting through brittle hair. "Never guessed the day would come someone gets a knife past your skin." She said to break the silence, and also to let the blade cool in a can of liquid nitrogen. Shauna disposes of Xiao's hair in a labeled waste bin. The process continued.

The blade cut through Xiao's long, wavy locks. No ordinary comb or shampoo could tame the dragon hair. "I was real scared. First time I was in a long time." Xiao said, her tone becoming a bit glum once the grinder relented.

"We all have our bad days." Shauna said, cooling the blade once more.

"... Those college students in the convenience store on the news. Think it's really a suicide?" Xiao shifted the topic to current events.

"Hm? I'm not sure what to make of it. But if it's a metahuman with mind control... very rare. Very dangerous. And going after rapists and the like... A vigilante. Well, at least we won't need to worry about innocents." Shauna speculated, then put the grinder to hair once more.

"It's still wrong to take the law into your own hands. You said that, Ellie said that." Xiao picks up once the grinding stopped. Shauna had cussed under her breath when a piece of the broken blade got lodged into her industrial apron. What a relief.

"I know. But I'm also familiar with the kind of thinking that... that'd make me go after people like Hawthorne." Shauna held up a mirror to show the progress so far. "Up to your cheeks this time around?" Shauna asked, styling the dragon hair to preference.

"What's going on outside?" Xiao looked out the glass wall. A group of nurses and doctors were rushing down the hallway towards one of the patient wards. Shauna picked up on the situation, peering past walls and people to see an elderly man threatening his caretakers, his doctors and his wife, with a gun...

"Oh crap the guy's taking his wife hostage-" The hostage taking quickly resolved itself when the man turned the gun on himself. One bullet through the cranium, and the old man fell to the ground. There was blood on the walls and floor. The gunshot could be heard down the hall.

Jason hadn't want to come to Florida but it was a matter of friendship, from NY to Florida had it's cost the man had came anyway for his old friends sister was giving birth to his nephew. Jason was happy for him but the stubborn man insisted that he came to hang for while, saying this wouldn't have been possible if it wasn't for Jason which was true itself. He had blocked the bullet that would have killed her six years ago but was too late to save the kid, a memory that still hunted him in nightmares. A reason he had complemented on leaving his gang to go free in the first place.

After a long night and day and some disturbing new's of a quad mass suicide, Jason had almost kicked the bucket on coming but he had gone too far to give up now and his hard work had paid off for their he was. Nick in all his glory, and the old scar on his arm. "Nick. Been a long time. How's Jennie?" Jason would ask while putting a hand on Nicks shoulder, Nick returning it before answering.

"Better then last night, I still thank god that I wasn't born a woman." Nick would joke with a small laugh, showing a chipped tooth that Jason gave a chuckle to, he was the one that gave him it.

"I agree." With that he would let go of his friend's shoulder and follow him into the hospital, small chat down the hall till they came across a scene. One that reminded him of what had happened some six, seven years ago. "Nick back away. Don't want a kid to go without his uncle." Nick nodded and backed away from the situation while Jason stayed behind to keep an eye on what was happening. If needed he could rush in their with speed and disarm the man but then it ended with the geezer taking himself out. Jason walked in among the doctors to scope out the situation, where the hell had he gotten the gun. Why did he have the gun? These questions would have to come later, for anyone who heard that shot was going to freak out and knowing from hospital movie parts, then gunshots usually scared a lot of people.

Christopher had been following the news of the suicides ever since they had hit the..news. People had been shaken up by the occurrences, but then again young people sniffing out their lives when they had no seeming reason to do so always was tragic.While sipping on a cup of steaming tea, he considered the information given over the broadcast with a small smirk. This was not natural, but something was happening with those youths. A shame it was to see such young lives snuffed out, especially when their own hands were doing the snuffing. "Harvard students killing themselves, tragic indeed." He muttered shaking his head, adjusting his glasses with a single push upwards."A little too strange, perhaps there might be something more to it." They didn't match his killing record really, so luckily it was not another death blame on him, especially when he would have not gained anything from them.

It could have been the work of a metahuman, and if that were the case the power they held could have been something of interest to him. Someone that could cause people to commit suicide, now that was an interesting little gift indeed. Still the distance he would have to travel to actually look into this was negligible really, Florida was a place he wanted to visit after all. With plenty of leave piled up within his own job, he would place that in with a notice that he would be unavailable for a few days. Perhaps after all of this was done he could even go to the beach, which would have been a sweet treat after taking whatever it was that was waiting for him. With a small period of packing and some travel he was in Florida, taking on the sun as anyone would really. The change within scenery was nice when he thought about it really, and there was a little less pollution compared to Los Angeles.

Dressed in black slacks with a white button up shirt tucked into that he would begin the whole searching portion of the trip. Just the anticipation alone had sent his heart aflutter, but then again that made him wonder where he should start. These suicides seemed to have no pattern, and so he considered starting by visiting the morgue. Examining ther brains of those that had died, maybe they were metahumans themselves and then from there he could surmise many things. Walking around was something that he had been doing during this thinking period, and that was when his sensitive hearing caught onto what sounded like a gunshot that drew him towards the sound itself. Someone was shooting, and maybe that was a clue as he found himself running into a hospital of all places.

What he came upon was the scene of an old man with what appeared to be a hole within their skull, and blood spreading out within a pool around it. "Suicide? Well that's quite the find." He muttered to himself trying to keep the toothy grin from spreading. "This might be a lead in the making."

An uncomfortable silence fell on the people in the hall. Doc Shauna pushed past to get to the inside of room. Fighting criminals and super powered villains was one thing... this... this was something she couldn't fight. Shauna felt... powerless.  

"JIM! Oh god... Jim... why... why..." The old dead guy's old lady wife broke down sobbing, clutching at her dead husband's body. Uncounted minutes passed by as all eyes were on the surviving woman, and Shauna, having seen such madness, still felt a deep, cutting pain. She quickly embraced the old lady, and started telling people to get moving and doing- to clear out of the room, to call the police, to tell the orderly in charge of the patient to keep the scene untouched.

In all the commotion, only a very perceptive few would notice that the emergency exit door at the end of the hall very briefly opened and closed.

The door to the dead man's room was closed off by the orderly who was supposed to care for him. Now she was filling out paperwork in the hall to have him moved, since the hospital also served the local police in providing autopsies. She'd be there for a while.

The staff quietly do as they're told, as they're trained. Shauna guides the lady to the lounge, the poor old lady crying and sobbing, a total wreck if there ever was one. There were no words- no words for the semi-retired superhero to give the woman, but Shauna noticed that the lady had a black eye- her left one- and from her medical knowledge as well as observation, she already had it before entering her husband's room... Her forearms also had old defensive wounds... wounds that would have come from a stick, a whip or a belt. Shauna was beginning to piece together something about the man, though she kept her opinions to herself and simply kept the old lady company.

The commotions would go on for a while, the police being at least ten to fifteen minutes away.

It would be a while of quiet staring that feel upon the onlookers, a piece of their mind told them they should go get help but death was so fascinating. Jason would already think that at least half the people here would tell people how cool and sad this was rather then be freaked out. That was human nature but it wasn't Jason's. Finally, a doctor came by and embraced the old widow which Jason thought was nice but a thought occurred that the police would be arriving soon and he would have stayed but he had his gun on him, hidden under his leather jacket and one of the better parts of not taking a plane over. Not wishing to be found with a weapon on hand he began to backtrack though the crowd to get to the exit.

Making it from the crowd, Jason would turn to the emergency exit only to see it briefly, just briefly open and close. Ether someone had beat him to getting away or whoever just left had no business to be here and by that Jason thought one thing. Meta. It was a conflicting few seconds, Chase after the man or woman for them being the possible chance of being a mind controlling meta or leave, while both were easy and hard choices, Jason had to think. His best friends nephew was in this hospital and if the meta was sick minded then he or Jen could be next. And that's all the thought he needed before he began a small but fast jog towards the exit, if anyone was watching it would have hella made him suspecting of this but he didn't care, he just jogged towards the door planning on getting out and finding whoever left before. Hoping to god his idea was right and whoever this was, was a mind controlling meta. Not some random civvie that felt too sick to stay by."Sorry Nick."

People looked on in utter shock at what had transpired before them. Not that he could blame them, considering that seeing someone end their lives tended to shock many people when it happened right before them. Still he found himself wondering what had transpired there, if something had control of their mind or if they simply wanted to die. Leaving a widow elderly woman crying over them, which made him wonder if perhaps his mind control theory was not wrong. Someone pushed past the people, appearing to be a member of the hospitals staff that was going to check up on the situation. Minutes went on while he heard the wretched sobbing, mind running over what he should do from there while someone seemed to run through the hospitals entrance with a strange urgency. I wonder what that’s about? He thought to himself, considering following them but then again he could always make use of a few things at his command.

Slipping out of the public view, he would find himself one of the many doctors within the hospital, and alone they appeared to be. With an idea forming within his mind he would first have to cut this person off, which was easy enough and then getting them alone. Well knocking them out was easy with their powers, then it came along to hiding their unconscious form before taking their clothes and  their form as well. Adjusting the small tie, he would block the door behind him before returning to the scene with feigned worry now upon their face. With this new face he could approach the crying woman, having pulled enough information about the female to know who his fellow doctor was and to avoid any potential problems. She appeared to be mourning, and he could not blame her however something did catch his attention.

One was that what he could surmise from this woman's mind was that this was the very judge that had acquitted the prior four suicide victims. Along with that he found strange bruises upon her arms, defensive wounds but then again that raised more questions than answers. His manner was kindly really as he silently examined the more obvious of wounds. Had the old man done this, and were these killings becoming nothing more than the actions of some justice hungry monster? Well now that was the question.

EMERGENCY EXIT SHAFT

Jason would emerge into the emergency exit staircase to see nothing out of the ordinary... at first. But if he stayed there, or looked down he'd see a figure standing still on the lower landing. A few seconds would pass and the figure looked up at him and the lights would appear to go out...  

... when they came back on, the figure vanished.

She stood beside Jason in a heartbeat; she was wearing a hospital gown, bloodied, her hair a disheveled mess. her skin was corpse pale, her eyes glossed over. She opened her mouth as if to scream, and a demonic tongue lashes out- made of dismembered tongues sewn together. she extended her dead hands to attack Jason!

HOSPITAL WARDS

Shauna has one an orderly take the widow home and keep an eye on her, as staying here would only make her feel worse.

The police eventually arrive and decide to just bring the body directly to the morgue. They take statements from witnesses They take the body out back to the morgue service elevator away from public view.

People in the hospital began talking when the old man's identity came out. Theories began springing up about ESP, mind control, divine retribution... death notes.

"Judge Jeffery? Wasn't he the guy who acquitted the Hawthorne kid for the rape?"

"Yeah. Yeah he is."

"He kills himself a day after those 4 boys did the same. Is this some kind of coincidence?"

"It's just damned freaky."

"I dunno. Maybe someone somewhere has a Deathnote?"

"What's a Deathnote?"

"Hahaha! Shit, A Deathnote? you know... it's an anime thing. It's this notebook that some death god hands out to some vindictive shmuck. You write down someone's name and they die... and you can even specify how they die."

"Wow. That's... we have people who shoot lasers out of their eyes on the news. It's not that hard to believe. This is way too weird to be a coincidence. But there's nothing in the evidence to disprove that theory."

"Yeah. It's really scary. So like, we got ourselves a Kira here in Florida?"

Shauna has little patience for this gossip. The only way to really figure this thing out was hard evidence. And it had to start somewhere. Though she struggled with herself a bit; was her hero complex kicking in? Was she seeing enemies and villains where there were none? Maybe this really was just a guilty suicide, resulting from bad depression medicine.

she checked the charts on the door. No, Jeffrey was here for his diabetes, not for psychological reasons.

Shauna approached Clockwork who was disguised as a doctor. By some sheer coincidence, he took the ID of the pathologist in charge of the morgue. "Yo Andy. Mind if we took a look at the body downstairs? I know suicide's usually skip this, but I gotta know. Maybe there was some mix up in medication not on paper that made him go over the edge." She asked discreetly.

As soon as Jason made it though the door, he looked around to see stairs. Going to the edge he would look up and down to see if he could spot a runner and he had thought he had when he spotted a figure below him. When the figure seemingly looked up, Jason thought about jumping down just in case they made a runner. But with a flicker of lights, off and on the figure was gone. "What the?" Jason would say in surprise before turning to go check the below are only to come face to face with a zombie girl. Paleness all over, blood and messy hair.

The next moment she had opened her mouth and unleashed a demonic sewn together tongue before extending her dead arms at him, an grab or an attack. Jason was too freaked out to tell. His first action was to remove the jacket he had and throw it at the dead girl but found it went right though her. "Shit Shit Shit Shit." Side stepping the Ghost, Jason would push past the incorporeal being and pick up his jacket before making a dash for the stairs. He was not prepared for ghost, no way no how.

The people that had gathered around the scene were muttering among themselves, some about the possible causes of the suicides and others about the fact of who this person was. One of them mentioned an anime that had been popular a few years ago, though he had only bothered to watch the first few episodes before his attention moved onto other things. Still, from what he could glean a Deathnote would have been a useful weapon for him. His attention would turn to a woman known as Shauna, one of his fellow doctors it would appear. He offered a small smile, before pushing himself to his feet and letting a slow sigh slip through his lips. The suicide was even far from the reason they were here in the first place, meaning that whoever was doing this didn't quite care about being covert with what they did. The police would arrive, and the body would be moved to the morgue which he apparently worked in.

Andy, well that was the name of the form he had taken. "I don't mind." He responded in a similar hushed tone. "If you don't mind me coming along." He then added with a shrug standing to his feet, motioning for Shauna to come along with him. Finding the morgue itself was easy enough, and the walk there was only a few minutes really until he found himself walking into the rather sterile looking morgue. The walls were lined with the metallic shelves with names placed on the outside where all one had to do was scan them to know which one they had to look into. Resting on one of the two tables was the body itself. "Feel free to look for whatever you're looking for. Just...don't make a mess."

Once Jason was thoroughly chased off out the emergency exit, the ghost laughed. "Sucker." She snickered, then the 'ghost' faded out. Somewhere, someone laughed, watching the cruel prank through a hidden camera attached to the bottom of the stair.

Jason would exit into the street, as news crews began to arrive. This suicide had drawn them like moths to the flame, considering the identity of the victim. This information got people on the street talking, no doubt.

Reporters began their thing as cameras began to roll, and they were reporting live. "This just in, we've gotten news that Judge James Jeffreys, the controversial figure in the Hawthorne case, has died at the Florida hospital... a day after the four students he acquitted had died... Speculation is running rampant that there must be a hidden force causing these suicides..."

In the lobby, the old widow was being escorted by the orderly. Her appearance caused an uproar like some celebrity. They promptly turn back and go back inside the hospital.

"It seems that Martha Jeffrey, the judge's widow, is present on site..."

Hospital security personnel promptly lock the front doors. The horde of reporters are held at bay by the reinforced glass.

MORGUE

An ID scanner opens up the Morgue elevator, a large rectangular lift that accomodated stretchers. It was plain and white, sterile and quiet. In a few seconds they would be in the Morge basement, Shauna rubbing herself slightly as she passed through the blowing of the airlock.

She walked past a few other dead bodies, covered with a white sheet, their tags tied to their toes. Shauna had seen many of the dead in her life, but something about being with them here in a cold, clinical setting made her uneasy. One of the bodies was of a young child. "Ugh, I need to stop watching zombie movies." She remarked, voicing her concern to Andy/Clockwork.

Shauna turned on the lights in the morgue, seeing the aged Judge Jeffreys on the central examination table. The old man was pale and dead, very very dead, his head wound cleaned, a white sheet tastefully covering him waist down.

She took blood samples, ran the body through scanners, and examined the wound, applying some forensic know-how to discern something. Conveniently, the hospital had advanced machines that would turn out results in minutes, rather than hours.

Shauna studied the wound, and the x-rays, and the CT scans. She does the scans with the machines, not wanting to use her powers in front of a colleague. She makes her conclusion. "...Nothing. Except a bullet to the head, emerging on the other side."

The blood analyzer alerted Shauna that the tests were finished. "Negative. No substances in his blood."

"...So it seems for all intents and purposes, this was a legitimate suicide." Shauna let out a sigh, turning off the lamps and chart lights.

"Sure wanna know though, was how he got a gun into the hospital." Shauna remarked, sitting down and leaning back in an office chair.

Indeed, there was such an absence of evidence, Shauna would likely overlook the implication of the lack of gunpowder on the Judge's hand.

The bodies of the four boys, meanwhile, were there in the morgue as well. Examining those bodies would turn up the same- absolutely no evidence on their bodies. However, a very, very perceptive examination would see that their wounds were not so consistent with their implements of death...

As Jason had made it to the bottom of stairs he busted out the door and into the street while putting his jacket on, hiding the gun he had as he looked around only to find a news crew that were making their way to the hospital, Jason closing in on them to find out anything from the grubs. A word he liked to use or these news people, they just grubbed for something that was good for TV but it was a needed distraction from what he had seen. Was it real? Fake, Imagination or something to do with what was currently happening.

Closing in on the reporters, he would listen in to find that the old man who had offed himself was a judge one that had acquitted the charges of four younger men that had died by same accounts. Suicide. Listening to commotion he had learned that it was rape charges but no one said the victim died, meaning that the ghost, shaped as a girl wasn't the victim he first assumed but where did it play then. Maybe it was a part of his imagination. Then a thought came to him and he made his way to around the hospital, the body's were always the first thing that one looked at. If he could see their wounds, blood test, whatever that could tell him something that might connect to the thing he saw from the stairs.

A small walk of avoiding cops and he had found the morgue door, bringing back memory's of an old heist of stealing body's from a LA hospital. Last time the door was locked to keep people out at night and he guessed it wouldn't be different now but he wanted to try something as stupid as it was. He began knocking on the door to see if anyone was in, if so he would try to lie his way in but if not it was going to be a barge in, break in and find out what he needed.

The morgue was sterile and white much as one would have expected a morgue to be. "Don't worry, I doubt any of these people will rise from the dead." He noted with a small smirk. Something told him there would suddenly be an influx of the undead flowing through the morgue itself. With hands buried into his pockets he would stand around a few feet behind Shauna as she looked over the corpse of the judge. As she talked about the evidence being spoken about, he did a little examining of the body itself. One thing that he took notice of was that their hand lacked any kind of gunpowder residue, which made him wonder something. How could someone shoot themselves and not have gunpowder residue on their hand?

From there he began to look over the bodies of the four murdered students, mostly about their wounds which seemed to be slightly awry from how they supposedly died. "Well this is strange." He muttered to himself stroking his chin while turning towards Shauna. Considering that he was a doctor anyway, well he had a knack for noticing things others would not. "These kids supposedly slit their own throats, but the wounds...don't quite suggest that." He spoke up wondering if she could add something to that. "The wounds themselves don't all match up, so perhaps it may have not been suicide."

Shauna didn't catch the implication of the absence of evidence. Clockwork's analysis brought a new angle. "...So we really do have a killer out there. But, if it's this way, we could rule out mind control." She speculated.

Then someone knocked at the morgue door. Shauna gestured Clockwork to wait a second. She walks over to the morgue exit, taking a brief glance with her x-ray vision. She didn't recognize who it was, so she spoke through the intercom outside. "Who the heck are you?"

Jason waited a few seconds thinking his plan though when all of a sudden a voice came though. Intercom of course, that made things a little harder then he liked. "Florida police. Would like to see the victims corpse." Jason said in a voice that sounded like someone on the force. He wasn't to well in the pretending to be an officer but he knew a few things from watching them on the job, from a jail cell.

Of course if this plan failed then he might need another way in, such as breaking in or finding a way in from inside the hospital if their was one. While that also meant getting back inside, this was a mystery and one that he planned on solving one way or the other.