come_sailaway | JUNE EVENT: CAMP

early on June 10th, Friday's morning announcements end with a request for everyone going on the latest excursion to meet her in the atrium. she seems in noticeably better spirits than she had been last time, and she leads them cheerfully to the tender. once they are all aboard, and the door is securely shut, the interior fills with gas, and, perhaps, their last thought before they slip into unconsciousness is "oh shit, not again."

passengers wake up on a rickety old school bus, driving down a dirt road surrounded by woods. what is it that they notice first? that, no matter what they were wearing before, they are now wearing a camp t-shirt and legitimately horrifyingly short shorts? the overstuffed backpack between their knees? the words "take one down and pass it around" dying on their lips? the fact that Friday is absolutely driving the bus?

or, maybe the fact that it's already slowing down, pulling up in front of a massive wooden sign, saying:

CAMP AION

when they get out of the bus, Friday is the one to divide them up into their cabin groups, and she is the one to give the counselors their very official-looking clipboards and whistles. she explains that they are in charge, and that she will be back to pick them up in a week, and... very little else. she responds to nothing outside of whatever is on her unseen little script, and she gets back on the bus shortly after, leaving them there.

welcome to camp. let's make some summer memories!

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"I'm always surprised how many murderers are never caught. It seems like they should be easy to find, though I suppose not if they're killing at random for fun rather than for a reason." There wouldn't be any clues to connect them if they just picked victims spur of the moment.

He looks over at the key, starting to copy out the letters into a block so he can start deciphering it. The 'Yours Ava' is reassuring that he's doing this right, but it takes a moment to figure out the order he needs to read the rest of the letter.

"Ah, this is clever. She went to a lot of effort for these."

"There are many reasons why people kill," Malcolm says as he works to translate the letter into a block of text. "The hardest to catch are the type that kill strangers for fun because there is no obvious connection between the killer and the victim." Those are the cases he enjoys working the most though. That requires solving a puzzle, not merely following the logical steps to get to the husband or father or daughter who did the crime.

"Yeah," he replies with a little smile. "She did. Oh, and when you have it written it, you'll need to recopy it starting in the bottom left corner and then going in diagonals from left to right. She didn't make it easy at all."

Malcolm is kind of impressed, if he's being honest.

"What causes people to leave clues? Is it because they want to be caught, or because they're confident enough that they won't be? Even in my world and my time, that's still something that's done. Taunting the authorities with their crimes and feeding them information about what they've done." He'd never be so overly confident that he'd give away anything about his crimes, and he rarely even murders anyone. It feels like that's creating unnecessary difficulties to overcome for the criminals.

He starts to recopy the letter, his handwriting extremely precise, almost like a font rather than handwriting.

"I suppose she wanted to make sure we were entertained. And since you have experience with such things, that's.. " the word he's looking for here is 'cute' but he can't think of that in the moment. "She must have spent quite a while doing this for us."

Well, for Malcolm anyway. He has a suspicion why, especially when he sees what she's written to him asking to be taught how to dance.

"In this case, I guess you're talking about clues deliberately sent by the killer, not those inadvertently left at crime scenes?" Malcolm asks. He loves getting to talk about serial killer stuff, so hopefully Max is prepared for an earful.

"Sometimes killers send letters because they do have a secret subconscious desire to get caught. That wasn't the case with the Zodiac. His letters were to prove how smart he was, smarter than anyone else. That's why they were in code. Other killers send more straightforward letters.

The BTK killer basically got himself caught by initiating correspondence with the media and police thirteen years after his last victim. Why?" Malcolm shrugs. "Mostly taunting. He thought it was a game and was upset when the police lied to him and used data on a floppy disc that he sent to catch him. He's a classic narcissist though. He loved that attention."

Malcolm makes a face. BTK reminds him too much of his father, so he has a special hatred for him.

"She did..." he agrees absently as he starts to write the block of letters out into meaningful words and sentences. There are an awful lot of hearts in this letter...

Is it possible?

"Yes, the ones where they somehow think they're too smart to get caught. That kind of hubris is just asking to be arrested." Though he supposes it's also incredibly validating to then not be found. Max knows if it was himself he'd be so smug that he'd probably radiate some kind of aura of cockiness that would get him arrested immediately.

"After thirteen years he would have gotten away with it if he hadn't meddled." Max shakes his head. Not that he wants murderers to escape custody, he doesn't really care if they aren't specifically targeting him, but he is very perplexed at the rationale that would cause someone to do that.

He glances over at Malcolm's letter, that definitely is a lot of hearts, and he will immediately avert his eyes back to his own letter. He probably doesn't want to see that.

"That was BTK. He thought he was too smart to get caught. He was wrong." Malcolm gets what Max is saying. It's pretty dumb, but Malcolm is glad that killers have these weaknesses. Otherwise they wouldn't get caught.

He separates the words out as he goes, writing them all in caps underneath the translated block.

DEAR MALCOLM
IM SORRY WE HAD TO MEET THIS WAY YOU GIVE ME THE STRENGTH TO WANT TO DO BETTER NO MATTER HOW HOPELESS THIS ALL FEELS I WISH I KNEW HOW TO EXPRESS HOW MUCH I ADORE YOU
YOURS AVA ♥ ♥

Malcolm reads it, barely breathing. He's silent for a moment as what Ava is trying to say sinks in.

"Uh. I think I should go find her," he says, surprised. "Now."

Edited 2022-07-02 01:09 (UTC)

"Ah." He doesn't have a mouth, or really facial expressions other than his eyes. But the way the apertures of his eyes half close and the tone of voice definitely conveys something like a smile.

"That good is it? Go find her. And thank her for the diversion." He's figured out what his is now, and can piece together what she's probably telling Malcolm from her request for Max to teach her how to dance. "I wish you luck."

It is hard to read Max's expressions because of the helmet(?). That's part of how Malcolm profiles people. Fortunately, he's not interested in profiling Max right now.

At some point, definitely. But for now, he needs to find Ava.

"Thanks," Malcolm says, getting up from the table. He turns and is about to hurry out when he pauses and looks back. "Let's uh.. talk again sometime?"

Is that a weird thing to ask? Point is, Max intrigues him and he's Ava's friend. And Malcolm got to have a conversation about serial killers, which is the type of conversation that he's always up for.

"Certainly." He's always up for conversation, especially when he gets to find out more things about people. Malcolm can profile him, and he can take stock of Malcolm. A win/win for all involved.

Also he's very interested in the less savory things, so please, talk about serial killers with him all the time.

JUNE EVENT: CAMP

CAMP AION

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