"An empty brain is the devil's workshop."
Unknown.
It's true. So, I am the devil.
— — —
Time had no meaning. A city humming with life, and somewhere, someone was already three steps ahead of everyone else.
Eyes scanning, always scanning. Calculating. Waiting.
Every second mattered. Every thought was a weapon.
[ NEWS BROADCAST ]
"Six cases in the last two months. Anonymous. Zero casualties. No suspect. No motive confirmed. Authorities have declined further comment."
The anchor said it like a weather report.
Like it was boring.
— — —
[ Special Task Force HQ — Watching ]
POV: Marcus Vel — Task Force Leader
Serious.
"Six cases. Nothing. We've gone nowhere."
He clicked the TV off.
"So we finally got a detective assigned. Mr—"
He paused.
"Kael."
[ Task Force — Whispers ]
"Kael? For cases this strange? Who even is that."
"Another detective means extra workload. Guaranteed."
"Those guys always walk in like they own the room."
"Yeah. Attitude before answers. Every time."
POV: Detective Kael — Enters
He was twenty-three. He looked younger. That was the first mistake people made about him.
He didn't acknowledge the whispers. He walked to the evidence board, scanned it once — the whole thing, top to bottom — and turned around.
"Shut up."
Not loud. Not aggressive. The kind of quiet that doesn't need volume.
"Your problem isn't the cases. Your problem is you've been reading them in order."
Nobody answered.
"Case six. The hospital evacuation. What caused it?"
"Electrical fire, third floor—"
"Wrong. The fire was set. Deliberately. Small accelerant, maximum smoke, minimum damage. The burns in the case-six report — check the distribution pattern. It's in the post-incident assessment filed five days later. Which none of you read."
A beat.
"He needed the building empty before he moved on the target. The fire wasn't collateral. It was step one."
Kael pulled his jacket straight.
"Three days. Rest. Re-read everything. When we come back, we're not reacting to him anymore."
"Three days? We—"
"Meeting over."
He left.
POV: Marcus Vel
"He's twenty-three and already a dickhead."
He said it to no one.
Then: ''Go. Three days. Come back sharp.''
— — —
[ Three Days Later ]
POV: Kael — Internal
A trickster giving clues, thinking he is the smartest. He thinks he can change the world, but he can't. Another this-society-made-me-a-villain story — they are just crazy assholes who think they can revolutionize a world that is rotten from its root. They chose this path. Society just gave it as an option.
But...….if some crazy asshole could change the world. Will I be the one. I don't know the answer myself. It's really a matter of thinking. The conflicts in our mind.
He stared at the board.
Six cases. Six corrupt targets. Six zero-casualty exposures. The public called it vigilante justice. The task force called it terrorism. Kael called it something else.
He's not punishing. He's demonstrating. Each target is a node. He's not angry — he's architectural.
The question wasn't who he was.
The question was what he was building toward.
— — —
[ Day Five — Full Deployment ]
POV: Kael — Briefing
"The last six cases. All corrupt targets. Politicians, business leaders, media executives, institutional heads. He doesn't pick randomly — he picks structurally. Every target was a load-bearing point in a corrupt system."
He laid six photographs on the table.
"Each photo has background detail he left intentionally. I Case one — the academic building facade is visible through the window. Case two — a private bank logo in the reflection. I noticed a smudge on the corner o Case Three's photo.So, that meant the camera angle was shifted intentionally.I have partial reads on four of the six."
"You think he's telling us the next locations."
"I think he embedded a sequence. Whether that was always for us or whether he adapted when the task force was assigned — I don't know yet. Either way the information is real. We deploy here, here, and here."
He tapped the map.
"Keep a core team with me at HQ."
[ Deployment Begins ]
POV: Reno Hirata — Junior Member
"Sir. What if he's framing us. What if the locations are wrong."
"Then we're wrong. But when a detective gets a case, he deduces. That's the work. The risk is large so we've deployed extra at each point. It's not ignorable."
Reno nodded slowly.
Kael turned. A girl at the far end of the room hadn't moved or spoken since the briefing started.
"Who is she."
"Vess. Special task force. She almost never talks."
"Good."
[ One Hour In — Report ]
Fourteen devices found in the private bank. Infrastructure level. Non-lethal — smoke and concussion units designed to trigger automatic server lockdown per safety protocol. No structural damage. No casualties.
Just every financial record in that building inaccessible for the next twelve hours.
POV: Kael
"He's not attacking the building. He's attacking what happens when the building locks down."
He turned to Marcus.
"Where is the nearest large public gathering we have no units covering right now."
Marcus checked the radio. His face changed.
"There's a student rally. Three blocks. Been running two hours. We have nobody there — everyone's deployed."
"That's where he is."
[ Unknown ]
Now the real case begins.
— — —
[ The Rally — 12:17 PM ]
[ HQ Members Present ]
Marcus Vel. Kael. Reno Hirata. Curo. Vess.
Four hundred, maybe six hundred people. Students mostly. Signs about the school system, career tracks, mandatory paths. The usual heat without direction.
Kael started scanning immediately. Not signs. Faces. Specifically — faces performing the wrong emotion.
He found the one in under ninety seconds.
POV: Orman Hensal — 19 Years
Serious. Thought-provoking.
He had the microphone. He wasn't on stage. He stood ground level — surrounded by the crowd, not above it. That was deliberate.
He made space around himself.
"Leave me here."
He said it into the mic. Calm. The crowd parted slightly, confused.
"Listen."
He waited one full second.
"Group of teenagers started this. I am one of them. These rallies are meaningless."
[ Crowd ]
"What?"
"Is he serious?"
"Get out of here—"
[ Orman — Continuing ]
"You're right about your anger. But ask yourself: are you starting in the right place?"
"The fact is, if what you are asking for gets done — you would just slack off and rot. That is not your fault. It is the system. You have been pressurized from the beginning of your life and you will take every chance to escape it. That is normal."
POV: Kael — Internal
He's not trying to lead them. He's trying to destabilize them. A marching crowd dissipates. A questioning crowd carries it home.
"Harry. Who is he."
"Looks like a normal kid—"
"Don't move. Listen."
[ Orman — Continuing ]
"Ask yourself. Aren't you doing it. You do everything — but the biggest question."
He paused. Let it sit.
"Don't you lie to yourself. The one self that knows everything as much as you do. About how you will change. Commitments and promises you never fulfill."
The crowd went quiet.
Not the quiet of confusion. The quiet of something landing.
"One last thing."
He looked at the ground once. Then up.
"Before I go."
Gap.
"A bomb is going to blast."
Gap.
"In five minutes."
"Kael's gut tightened. Reno's hand trembled on the radio. Marcus felt the blood drain from his face for a microsecond. Every second stretched longer."
[ Kael ]
"Catch him. NOW."
"A distant car horn, a clatter of a dropped sign, and the faint click of someone stepping on metal. Every tiny sound measured, every heartbeat counted."
[ Chaos ]
Six hundred people moving in every direction simultaneously.
Kael drove forward anyway — Reno and Curo behind him, Marcus managing the perimeter radio, Vess moving parallel on the left flank.
Orman was already gone from the spot.
He had moved laterally during the announcement — the crowd's panic was a geometric obstacle he had pre-calculated. A utility access panel at the base of the pavement had been pre-loosened. He dropped through.
Kael reached it without stopping. Dropped in.
The channel was deeper than it looked. In the dark and the momentum — everyone went down fast. Kael hit the wall. Stayed conscious. The others needed longer.
Orman was not in the channel.
[ One Hour Later ]
POV: Marcus Vel — Getting Conscious
Tense. Deep.
"Hong — Kael — Curo — Vess — wake up. Wake UP."
They surfaced two hundred meters east. Wet. Bruised.
The report came before anyone finished assessing.
The device — one unit, under a food cart — had been defused by a civilian maintenance worker. Recognized the components from a safety training video. Followed procedure with composure the responding officers called remarkable.
[ Reporting — Fast, Shocked ]
Roads filled. Everyone from the rally still standing in clusters. Not about the bomb — about what he said. Two reporters filming the conversations. One woman crying. Not from fear.
POV: Kael
That was the operation. Not the devices. The six minutes he stood in front of four hundred people and said something true.
"It's him. He is behind all of it. He is the one we're looking for."
"He said the bomb would blast—"
"And it nearly did. That's not a bluff. That's a controlled variable."
POV: Reno
"What do we do now."
POV: Vess — First Time Speaking
"Calm down. We take him somewhere quiet. Question him properly."
POV: Kael
"Agreed."
POV: Marcus
"North Central Prison. Skeleton crew today, decommissioned wing. No journalists, no chain-of-command interference while the city's this loud."
[ Unknown ]
It all went as planned. He thought he read me. He read my cover. I read him like an open book.
— — —
[ North Central Prison — Interrogation ]
The questioning ended.
The most shocking thing was what came after.
Orman walking out.
All of them standing. Not moving. Like they had no words left.
POV: Orman — Flashback, Being Questioned
"You caught me. Exactly as he said you would."
[ Task Force — Shocked ]
"What are you talking about."
[ Orman ]
"You all think you caught the criminal. But it all happened as he wanted. I am just the pawn you caught."
[ Marcus ]
"Kael. What is he talking about."
[ Kael ]
"I don't know."
Two words. Flat. And that flatness cost him something.
[ Orman ]
"First — research on detectives. They tend to follow provocation. Most criminals try to trigger a reaction and it almost clicks every time."
So they relax a little. By day five they're ready.
"Then the academic building blasts. The message on the wall confirms it's the same type of criminal as the others. So they follow the trap of the other clues."
That's exactly what he said. That's exactly what happened. Every agent scattered to every location.
"He said: they'll have only a few members left. Then the rally starts. The main mission — get caught. The bomb triggers."
And again. The same.
He raised his head fast — like a shock — and said it loud:
"How did he know it would be this prison."
[ Everyone ]
Silence.
The kind that means: we were played from the beginning.
[ Orman — Slow, Deliberate ]
"He didn't want to expose a corrupt official this time. It was something far greater. Let me ask you all one question."
He looked at each of them.
"Don't you lie to yourselves."
"Don't you think you are tricking yourselves."
"Just making comfortable thoughts to satisfy yourselves."
[ Present — Internal ]
They are quiet. The moment they stopped talking — I won.
[ Back to Flashback ]
He was blackmailed into this. His mission was psychological — provoke thought, nothing more.
"Let me go. I am just a normal person—"
He said it quietly first. Then:
"Let me gooooooo—"
Then normal again.
"I want to change things from inside. Let me join you. I will be a big help. Don't lie to yourself."
[ Marcus ]
"Let him go."
[ Kael ]
"What."
[ Marcus ]
"Is it justice to hold him? I am here for justice. Not to punish the innocent."
Kael closed his mouth. A muscle in his jaw moved.
[ Skip ]
[ Marcus — Last Thing ]
"One more thing, Kael. You thought of him as a villain made by society. That's not how he sees it."
He paused.
"He calls himself the Overthinker."
— — —
[ Present ]
POV: Orman — Walking Out
Orman is just an alias.
My other self. The one I sent here.
But in real — I am the unknown. The Overthinker.
And Orman Hensal is not me.
Me is the one who knows he is not god and can't be god yet dares to do what god does.
Pass judgment.
He knows nothing is truly right and nothing is truly wrong.
Right and wrong are just made to balance the truth.
Me is the one who knows every consequence — cause he thought it all.
Yet he walks down this path.
As he deems it the best.
This is my story.
The real story.
The real one.
The only one.