1 Chapter 1: Encounter

"Listen, all we want you to do is simply explain what happens when you walked in here."

It was currently 9:11pm on November 6th and investigating agents Tom Caddel and Will Thompson were attending a call surrounding murder at the Jersey City Hyatt Regency. A number of puzzles were scattered about the space, and a man was dangling by his legs attached to some rope from the top of his hotel room ceiling along with 30 cuts on his arm.

The puzzles feature a variety of things, some of the clues seemed to be painted in a watery dark texture.

One of the things painted in this watery texture was a symbol with a circle and four dots, two on top and two on the bottom. Another one was a massive arrow pointing to the bottom right corner of the room, where a black briefcase was stationed. Finally, what appeared to be multicolored kids' toy blocks with the numbers 208 and 256 on them were laid out in eye view on a coffee table.

"All that happened was that I entered the room after hearing someone order room service, but when I knocked on the door, nobody replied, which caught my attention" The room service employee replied, his hands trembling slightly. "I chose to slide the door open, and as soon as I realized what had happened, I called the police."

At precisely 7:21 p.m. that evening, a 19 year old young man had left his apartment. He had slouched posture although was still over six feet tall, along with a pale complexion, medium cut brown hair, and piercing brown eyes. His name was Scooter Ko, but liked to just be called Scoot

Scoot had left his room and gone to fetch a stick of butter, which he loved too much as it was nearly like a chocolate bar to him.

After returning to his room he heard a man screaming briefly, pausing, and then repeating, but he chose to ignore it. However, he made the decision to look into it after hearing this through the wall.

After muttering something under his breath, Scoot sprung from his position of standing on one foot on his hotel bed and scarfed down the rest of his butter. He then proceeded to haul himself out the door and over to the front of his neighbors.

"Please keep your weird yelling to yourself, I'm...busy," Scoot slouched in front of the door and remarked with disinterest. He was wearing his identical white pajamas with a teddy bear on the shirt, which may be humiliating if someone saw him.

He wanted to end this contact quickly.

The man did not respond, which was strange because for two minutes and seven seconds, he only yelled on and off, or once every 4.23 seconds Scoot calculated.

Scoot, curious now about what was happening, slowly pushed the door open and discovered the dead man hanging there with all of the puzzles and clues that had been left behind.

Scoot said, "This is certainly strange," as he looked around and examined the puzzles.

The typical person in this kind of scenario would either contact the police or two, call the cops. Nevertheless, Scoot was clearly not your typical someone.

After quickly scanning the hotel room cabinets for something to eat while examining the situation, he was disappointed to find himself empty-handed.

"Tsh, maybe this guy really did deserve to die, I mean come on look at this, I can't believe he doesn't have any food for me," remarked a disappointed and hungry Scoot.

This was despite the fact that a stick of butter has 810 calories which is what he had just scarfed down; however, this may be the result of the lack of meals that he eats throughout the duration of the day.

Scoot did intermittent fasting every morning, which he claimed boosted his intellectual abilities by more than 200%, although this was most likely simply a cover for not eating much because he disliked eating unless he was hungry.

A hidden camcorder.

That is what Scoot found conveniently positioned directly across from the victim's body. A coincidence? I think not.

"Ah, so that's why he was screaming," Scoot said. "Not a nice way to go, but based on the other clues, I would guess this man isn't so innocent himself"

Scoot had already completed the case, or at least the majority of it. In around a minute and six seconds, excluding the time spent hunting for food, which equals 27 seconds. Scoot had inferred and retrieved all of the remaining information on the case at that point.

The cause of death, the arrow, the number blocks, the symbol, all of it.

Let's not get ahead of ourselves now, I mean not everyone would understand what has happened so let's start in chronological order.

First, the cause of death.

After being captured and having his feet tied up. the man was dangling in his room with no idea what to do as he was scared and frightened. This is what allowed the killer to create his first puzzle.

Before leaving, the killer must have placed the hidden camcorder across from the man and instructed him to make thirty cuts along his arms and he would be let go. The killer abused the sense of urgency in which the victim, Chris Prince, had since he didn't know how long he had left until his blood pressure shifted down to his head and he went out.

Willing to do anything to live, the man quickly tried to do as the killer on the camcorder instructed, which quickly led to his demise. This was no accident, the killer wanted to set up a sort of puzzle with the 30 cuts; however, you must solve the rest as well.

Now the big arrow painted in a black substance.

The arrow was directly pointing at what seemed to be a briefcase, so open it right? No, that is what the killer wants you to believe however he left a hint. The arrow almost seemed to go past the briefcase, all the way to the floor almost like the briefcase was placed there after the arrow was drawn.

This is because the briefcase is a distraction and most likely rigged with bombs, which would destroy the evidence and all of the puzzles. Meaning the killer is specifically trying to find someone with similar intelligence to him.

Can't solve a puzzle? You are now disqualified from the game, forever.

How did Scoot know this? Just a hunch. But a hunch from Scoot is not just a hunch, it's buzz, something that Scoot knows.

To show to himself more than anyone that he wasn't a bad person he left a note for the police who would later investigate.

"Don't open please. There we go" read Scoot aloud after writing down a note on some crumpled up paper and placing it down in front of the briefcase.

Now then, what is that arrow for? To understand that you need to understand the...children toy number blocks.

The number blocks when organized spelled two numbers. Those being 206 and 246. However, currently these numbers are distractions and hiding the real clue which is.

That clue being the use of numbers. This is in correlation to the arrow from before as what the arrow was actually pointing to something through the walls and down into the front. The word hotel.

This conversion was easy for Scoot as he simply changed the "h" into an 8 as it is the eight later in the alphabet, the "o" is 15, the "l" is 20, and so on. In the end it results in the number 60.

This is where the stabbings come in as the concurrent lines over one another symbolize a quotient and so when dividing the number 60 by 30 you end in 2.

Finally, converting this back to a letter you end with b as it is the 2nd letter in the alphabet.

As Scoot stood looking out the window he murmured out loud. "Seems this is going to be a long puzzle, one that stretches out until a word is spelled."

He contemplated notifying and helping the people himself but he ruled that out since he would only be a suspect in the killing. All this thinking was distracting him, he need figure out the final details of the case.

The circular symbol with the 2 dots on top and 2 dots on bottom painted in a black mixture was also something related. Based on the past puzzles you would also seem you should decode this however that was not the case.

"Two strokes" Scoot uttered as he looked carefully examining the symbol. It would seem that while it looked like a circle in the center it was actually two strokes of a curved line.

Scoot quickly concluded that this was supposed to represent the killer's identity. It was supposed to represent an upright smiley face and upside down ones as well. This creates a picture of the person the killer is, someone who thinks he is a necessary evil. Meaning that killing this person was to serve a sense of justice.

"My shift is almost over" remarked a room service attendant outside as he seemed to be walking towards the room that Scoot was currently in.

If he walked in and saw Scoot right next to the body and the clues he would almost certainly be convicted. He needed a plan and a plan quickly.

Scoot remembered when he walked in there was a tiny piece of paper in the kitchen area of the hotel room and so he scurried over there and grabbed the paper. He quickly wrote down something and then waited for the attendant to walk into the room.

Once he arrived he wandered into the room but then was quickly distracted by a passing piece of a crumpled up paper ball that flew by. When the attendant's attention was directed Scoot quickly slipped out of the room.

The attendant read out the paper which said "Call 201-270-9918, and don't tell anyone about this"

Alarmed, the attendant was in such a buzz he didn't even notice the dead body and when he looked up and saw it he screamed.

Now we are back to where we are at the start.

"Ok, that's all we need from you, thanks for your time" uttered Thompson, the investigation agent, and Eligo, the attendant, was dismissed from his shift.

After reaching outside of the hotel, he stood on the pavement outside and dialed the number given to him.

A growl was heard over the phone.

"Why...wait who are you, are you the killer? '' muttered Eligo nervously over the phone. "If you are, please don't hurt me if you were the one in that room. I promise I won't notify the police. Before I didn't even tell them about the note.

"You don't need to worry I wouldn't commit such a boring crime. I mean those puzzles were so easy to decipher" admitted Scoot over the phone. "Anyways that growl you heard was my stomach, mind going to Magic Grill tonight I'm starved."

"Huh?" said Eligo over the phone. Confused that this man was so nonchalantly answering his questions. I mean he was just found in a room where a murder was committed. "We-we don't even know each other."

"Exactly why we should get some food to eat!" cheerfully said Scoot. "Be there at 10:15pm no later"

Before Eligo could even answer the phone had already been hung up. He had so many questions. Who was this man? Should he even really go, but he might be killed if he doesn't in case that man really is their killer.

In the end, Eligo decided to go. He didn't realize it but he was now entering some cold...no, black water.