Chapter 4

While the studio was being prepared for the shooting of the next film, two "field operatives" were scouting around for the new stars. What they wanted was a girl about 7 years old and a boy about 10. They never picked up the victims more than a day before filming since they didn't want the trouble or expense of taking care of the children before they were used. Besides, they were looking for a fear reaction from the children, and that could wear off if the children were kept around too long.

Two children were kidnapped from a playground in Toledo, Ohio, drugged enough to keep them docile, and transported to the holding room at the studio in Ann Arbor. As soon as the children were brought into the room, they were stripped and chained to cots. The children were left alone while the field operatives collected their money from the film's producer. They left the studio with Mary and Shirley close behind, just in case they made contact with other members of the gang.

Meanwhile, Jeff and Ann used their hologram projectors to assume the appearance of the two children and took their places on the cots. Judy took the children to GPD headquarters where their memories were wiped of the last few hours, and they were transported back in time to the point just moments after they had been kidnapped at the park. The children had been redressed in their clothes before being transported to GPD headquarters, so they never knew that anything had ever happened to them.

Judy rejoined the team in Ann Arbor as they prepared to deal with the rest of the so-called adults in on the movie project. The movie makers never suspected that things had gone awry, because the children still appeared to be in their expected places. Jase wanted to wait for filming to begin before they acted, so that they could be sure of capturing as many people in on the scheme as possible.

As soon as the children were brought to the sound stage and filming had started, all of the criminals were zapped with the stun ray and transported to GPD headquarters for questioning. All of these people were obviously guilty of one of the most heinous crimes, so there was no question of violating their "civil rights." Their memories were scanned for names of people in on the operation, but not captured, yet. Once the information had been extracted, they were dumped into the black hole at the center of the galaxy. Nobody knew what happened to their "souls," but nobody really cared!

Three names of an important local politician and two businessmen had been extracted, so the team looked into them. The politician was a woman who had aspirations to national office, eventually to becoming President. Almost all of her political expenses came from her share of the child pornography racket. She could certainly truthfully say that she did not accept money from corporations and other "special interest groups." Her husband and children had no idea that she was involved in any sort of criminal activity.

The two businessmen were also active in local politics and charitable activities, but had no personal ambitions for office. They preferred to be the "power behind the throne." Their families, too, were ignorant of their criminal activities.

The team decided to eliminate these people with the same lightning gun they had used against the Saudis and in the same very public manner. The question at hand, though, was what to use for an inscription on the cloud. They settled on Sic Temper Tyrannis, "Thus, always, to tyrants," in reference to their political ambitions. Admittedly, the quotation would be lost on most people, but the team liked it!

The two "field operatives" turned out to be students at the University of Michigan who just wanted some extra money, so they were dumped into the black hole after their minds were studied. This wrapped up the loose ends on this particular case, but now was the time to look into the Amsterdam case.

This situation was almost identical to the Ann Arbor situation and was handled in the same way. The team found that children were brought in from all over Europe, so that there were more people involved, but the new "mind reading" technique at GPD headquarters made it relatively easy to track down the criminals. Seventeen people were eliminated with the lightning gun in very public places over the span of a few hours. This took 4 days of the team's subjective time, though time travel made it seem that the executions all took place on the same day and over a very short time span within that day. This accomplished the desired affect of attracting media attention beyond what they would normally have seen with the conventional quiet assassination.

People were quite taken with the lightning bolt method of execution. It did, indeed, look like "an act of God" the way it seemed to happen without any of the normal indicators for a lightning storm. The "letters to the editor" pages of newspapers had to be increased to handle the suggestions for additional candidates for the lightning bolt method of elimination. Nobody was surprised that the majority of names suggested were those of politicians, but there were a few religious leaders and a smattering of others named in the more sensational tabloids. Naturally, none of these people were hit by lightning, but a few did keep a very low profile for some time.

Galactic TV had a field day with the lightning executions, and some of the local newspapers were peppered with suggestions for victims. There was quite a stir when one of the individuals named was struck by lightning while she was out playing the local version of golf. Before the hue and cry died down, the GPD had to issue a formal, official denial that she was a person being considered for elimination. A number of pundits wrote articles and appeared on TV explaining how it was possible for someone to be killed accidentally by lightning, and this incident should not be taken as anything other than an accident. Nevertheless, golf on several planets did decline in popularity for some time after that incident.

Three more child pornography rings were shut down over the course of the next 4 months, and the team was looking for new lines of investigation. It was during this time that Seven showed up with a request for them to look into a situation on Quegara VI. There seemed to be a band of killers running amok, and the local police were screaming for help.

The victims appeared to be selected at random, yet it did not look like the drive-by shooting situation. The attacks were always elaborately plotted, and if there were some sort of contest going on to kill a person in a more outlandish way than the previous murder. For example, a person was killed by being impaled by an icicle on a hot summer day. This was followed by someone being frozen inside a block of dry ice, and that was followed by a person being suffocated by being trapped inside a hollow block of ice. An so it went.

Jase and the team shook their heads in wonder at such a weird situation, but agreed to do what they could to help solve the mystery. They were transported to Quegara VI, otherwise known as Osoly, and met with the local officials. The Osolians were another species that looked peculiar to humans, but were not unpleasant to see. The typical Osolian adult looked like a St. Barnard dog, except that its head was replaced by front half of a fur-covered gecko. This typical adult was about 5 feet tall and 4 feet long in the horizontal body. It had no tail.

The Osolians were one of the renowned story telling species of the galaxy—the most popular sitcoms on galactic TV were authored by Osolians. Thus, it was not surprising that the Osolians would come up with a novel form of serial murder. These murders were always tagged by a calling card, so the police knew that the killing was part of the chain. Actually, two cards were used. One card was bright red with a white bar running from the upper left to the lower right. The other card was bright blue with a yellow bar running from the upper right to the lower left. This suggested that the murders were committed by two groups competing with each other to see who could come up with the most bizarre forms of death. The two card usually alternated their appearance, first one style with a murder victim and then the other style with the next murder victim. It was as if each group wanted to be sure that it got credit for the kill.