Ch.68Their Plan! (2)

# 068

“Where on earth did she get makeup from?”

Dexter muttered to himself as he wiped away the lipstick stains all over his face with a wet towel in the bathroom.

Since Jessie understood his situation, he quietly went to wash his face, unable to say anything to her while she was so happy.

When Dexter came out of the bathroom, Emily was right in front of him.

Emily stood there with her arms crossed, watching Dexter with an expressionless face.

Seeing her like that, Dexter could immediately tell that Emily had something to say to him.

“Do you have something to say?”

Dexter asked while shaking out the damp towel away from Emily.

“What did you do to Jessie?”

“What?”

Dexter furrowed his brow, not understanding Emily’s abrupt question, so she spoke slowly and deliberately.

“Jessie keeps laughing for no reason. And she won’t tell me why when I ask.”

Dexter, who had somewhat anticipated this, smiled lightly and said:

“What does that have to do with me?”

“Because you’re the last person Jessie met.”

“How do you know that?”

“I saw everything.”

“What exactly did you see and where?”

Feeling like this conversation with Emily could last all night, Dexter pressed her, and she replied in a calm voice:

“I saw Jessie kissing your face while saying thank you.”

“…You saw that?”

Dexter responded in a dumbfounded voice at Emily’s shocking revelation.

If this story reached other inmates or guards, Dexter would be fired on the spot.

Looking at Emily’s still expressionless face, Dexter wondered if she was using what she witnessed as leverage to blackmail him or demand something special.

“Jessie must have heard something from you that made her so happy she kissed your face.”

“Huh?”

“Please tell me why Jessie was so happy.”

“Um, isn’t the kiss the problem?”

“Why would the kiss be a problem?”

Now it was Emily looking at Dexter with a face that showed she didn’t understand his words.

Dexter was equally confused by her reaction.

‘What is this? A trap?’

Emily had caught Dexter, a correctional officer, in a compromising position, but she wasn’t trying to use it to gain something.

‘It’s as if she’s asking why that action would be problematic…’

Dexter had a realization about what he was thinking.

Feeling that something was missing in their conversation, making it feel off, Dexter felt his mind clearing as the question he’d been holding was answered.

‘Wait, could it be that she genuinely doesn’t think Jessie kissing me was wrong?’

Looking at Emily’s impassive expression, Dexter spoke:

“Well, first of all… don’t tell anyone about what Jessie did to me because she was so happy.”

“Why not?”

“It’s related to parole. If other inmates hear about it, things will definitely get noisy.”

Since that was the actual reason he had told Jessie to keep quiet, Dexter said the same to Emily.

“Is Jessie getting a parole hearing?”

“There’s a high probability, so I told her in advance. She’ll probably have one next month.”

Seeing Emily nod as if she understood his answer, Dexter continued:

“So don’t tell the other inmates. There must be a reason Jessie didn’t tell you.”

“I understand.”

Watching Emily, who seemed to need detailed explanations like a child to understand what not to do, Dexter strongly felt that something was lacking in her.

Among the inmates Dexter knew, Jessie was the one who knew Emily best.

‘I need to ask Jessie about this again.’

After once more making sure Emily would keep quiet, Dexter began looking for Jessie, who had been away on other business.

After walking around Medium Security Facility Block 2, Dexter found Jessie in someone else’s cell, looking disgruntled.

“Blue…”

As Dexter called Jessie’s last name to get her attention, he sensed the atmosphere in the cell.

‘This doesn’t seem good.’

“…it’s not my fault…”

“When you grow up…”

Due to the surrounding situation, Dexter couldn’t clearly hear what Jessie and the other inmate were saying in lowered voices.

To hear better, Dexter carefully moved so that the people in the cell couldn’t see him, heading toward the adjacent cell.

“Did I not pay enough back then? It sounds like you still want to get slapped. What should I do?”

Though he couldn’t see her, Dexter could clearly hear Jessie’s sarcastic voice.

“Stop acting so high and mighty just because you won once, Jessie.”

“No, idiot. You should know your place before my foot gets shoved up your ass. You think someone who lost once can’t lose twice? Your confidence is impressive.”

“Back then I was…”

“If you’re going to spout bullshit like you weren’t paying attention or that you won’t go easy on me this time, just keep your mouth shut, Allison. You know I’m not the same as before, right? You know what that difference means?”

-Gritting teeth sound.

Someone was grinding their teeth.

“I’ll listen to complaints, but if you try anything behind my back, you or your followers will get to experience the skinny Jessie of old, so keep that in mind.”

Soon, Dexter saw Jessie’s back as she left the cell.

“That fucking bitch…”

As soon as Dexter heard the curse, he deliberately made his footsteps audible as he approached the cell Jessie had been in.

“Is there a problem?”

As Dexter approached the door of the cell, inside was Allison, who looked about twice Jessie’s size, glaring at Dexter with dissatisfied eyes.

“…It’s nothing.”

“Hmm, alright. Let me know if anything happens.”

At that moment, Jessie, who heard Dexter’s voice, whipped her head around.

“Dex, I mean, Officer Hughes?”

“Ah, Blueberg. I wanted to talk to you about the automotive vocational training from earlier.”

Dexter beckoned with his finger, gesturing for Jessie to come closer.

“What’s going on? Why all the cursing?”

Dexter asked as they moved far away from Allison’s cell.

“That bitch was pissing me off again. I taught her a lesson last time too.”

“Oh really? Well, good job then. If something like that happens again, I’ll make sure nothing bad happens, so put her in her place.”

Jessie looked at Dexter with a bewildered expression, not understanding why he was encouraging inmate fights instead of stopping them. Dexter caught her eye and smirked.

“I told you. You must have had your reasons. Oh, and about Emily.”

“Emily? What about her?”

When Dexter explained the series of events related to Emily that had just occurred, Jessie’s expression hardened.

“She, she saw everything?”

“Yeah. But her reaction was strange.”

It wasn’t that she was trying to keep things quiet for Jessie’s or Dexter’s sake, but she genuinely seemed not to know it was wrong.

“…She’s a bit unusual. How should I put it? She doesn’t empathize well with others. Actually, she’s really bad at it.”

If Jessie was saying this, it meant Emily could barely empathize with others’ actions at all.

“She lacks empathy?”

“Yeah. She’s kind of like a psychopath, but not quite.”

Jessie wasn’t a psychologist, so she couldn’t accurately diagnose Emily’s psychological state.

She could only indirectly guess based on Emily’s usual behavior, words, and Jessie’s feelings about them.

“But you said before that you liked her because she was nice?”

“She is nice! She just can’t empathize.”

Putting together what Jessie said, Dexter could now understand Emily’s behavior.

“So she just doesn’t think it’s a big deal.”

“Exactly. Just tell her not to talk about it to others and to keep quiet, and there shouldn’t be a problem. She’s good at following instructions like that.”

Thanks to Jessie, his questions were clearly answered, and Dexter looked around before patting Jessie’s head.

“Thanks, really.”

“Geez, I told you not to pat my head.”

Jessie grumbled, pushing away Dexter’s hand from her head.

* * *

After work, Dexter sat on his bed sending messages to Himena on his phone.

-I heard you caught some small fry on your way home yesterday. Did you read the investigation documents??

>I didn’t read all of it, just some. I got distracted by the OSA honorary agent ID they gave me and stopped reading halfway.

-There’s information about Mr. Goswell, who you said was your colleague, written in the back. Check it out.

‘The back pages?’

After seeing Himena’s message, Dexter noticed there was a printed photo on the back of the document he had read the day before yesterday and started reading again.

“Hmm?”

‘When printing Agent Hughes’ evidence, a highly transparent black humanoid hologram appeared?’

It meant that the OSA had directly tested the long-range hologram projector that Dexter had collected.

Along with that sentence, there was a printed photo of the hologram.

As soon as Dexter saw that photo, he searched for the picture Judy had sent him on his phone.

The printed photo in the document and the dark figure found in Judy’s house were almost identical.

Neither Dexter nor others would think of holograms as being dark and highly transparent; they would expect either high-end holograms that matched the original colors or the more common blue holograms of mainstream technology.

The thought that a dark, transparent figure could be a hologram hadn’t crossed anyone’s mind.

‘A modification that even someone familiar with alien technology wouldn’t think of.’

Changing a hologram projector from outputting blue holograms to black ones probably wasn’t very complex technology.

What was surprising was the way they twisted what others took for granted.

‘So now the question is…’

If what was found in Judy’s house was a hologram, it was time to figure out why holograms were wandering around her house.

‘If we connect this to the drawbacks of ionized gaborium…’

The answer was written in the document Dexter was reading.

[It is presumed that the primary plan was to make Summerlin residents mentally ill through the toxic gas released by ionized gaborium leakage. Additionally, it appears they intended to worsen the mental illness of Summerlin residents by projecting black holograms.]

‘What kind of sick bastards would do this?’

Dexter couldn’t help but gape at the OSA’s conjecture written in the document.

It meant they deliberately created paranoia symptoms in Summerlin residents by leaking ionized gaborium to instill anxiety, then used holograms to intensify those symptoms.

And to avoid detection, they hired someone to retrieve the hologram projectors, but that person was caught by Dexter.

From this point, Dexter couldn’t help but realize that he was entangled in a persistent connection with the person known as the Boss.

‘I’d understand if it were Himena or Jessie instead.’

Dexter shuddered at the Boss’s scheme to throw Las Vegas into chaos.

‘These bastards, what did the Summerlin residents do to deserve this?’

While Dexter had no idea who this Boss was, he could certainly infer that they didn’t see people as people.

Dexter pressed his eyes with his hands before sending a message to Himena.

>Just finished reading it. These guys are complete assholes.

-I think so too. Seems like we’ll have to work hard to catch these guys from now on. 🙁

>Let’s both do our best.

Dexter sent that message and lay down on his bed, wondering what the Boss’s next scheme would be.

-Hang in there, we can do this! 🙂

Seeing Himena’s encouraging message that soon arrived, Dexter smiled slightly as he closed his eyes to prepare for tomorrow’s shift.