Survival Of The Fittest

There was a click.

Then, the bulb of the flashlight awoke. Its beam cut through the midnight darkness like a blade of light, a circular endpoint left on the face of the blanched cadaver. It hung there for a moment, a light sway in the night air, and scanned across the carcass, from head to toe, then back again. The blood on the body had already turned grey and sun-bleached.

Then, there was the sound of footsteps.

A figure, cloaked in darkness, stepped towards it. The flashlight was clasped tightly in its hand, a beacon for lost souls. One step, two steps, three steps, and the shadow was there by the side of the remains, like a mythological psychopomp. Its purpose, however, was not to guide this lost soul to the afterlife—but to keep others from meeting that fate.

S061: ALEXANDER HAWTHORNE — CONTINUED FROM "A Matter of Time"

Alexander shined the light over the livid, sea-stained face of the corpse again. There were no doubts in his mind about its former identity. Its hair had meshed with salt and sand, eyes glazed and glassy, gazing up heavenwards, face and body tautened. Its open neck, torn to shreds, unzipped from the center outwards. The rot had set in a long time before.

"Your death will mean something," he silently promised to it. "I will make that a certainty."

He passed the flashlight into his left hand, careful to keep its focus on the neck. Then, his hand darted to the sheathe at his side. His long fingers wrapped around the handle of the knife and clasped it. Then, in a deliberate and careful motion, he drew it out. He tested the point on his finger and, once fully satisfied with its sharpness, began to steel himself.

A pair of cold brown eyes fell on the band of metal around the neck of the victim. The collar had torn apart at the front-center region but remained in one singular piece. Though it was already colored matte black, faint traces of the burn contrasted, darker at the fringes. He took a short breath of air, which he held tight in his chest, afraid to let it go again.

In his head, Alexander ran through his rationale again. He needed to narrow down possibilities, and the best starting point for that would be to determine the composition of the collar. To do that, first, he intended to determine its hardness, and from there, the possibilities would narrow, and he could begin to formulate a more specific plan of attack against it.

His years of experience as an amateur engineer proved the sort of expertise he believed he needed. Years of tinkering with the same types of materials that composed the blade made it easy to ensure that he could use it as a barometer to test against other materials; it was almost elementary for him to identify the components and compare them.

The blade was composed of 7Cr stainless steel. Its indentation hardness measured around 60-63 HRC on the Rockwell "C" scale; scratch hardness measured around 5-6 HM on the Mohs scale. If he could indent or scratch the collar—or conversely, if he couldn't indent or scratch the collar—with the knife, that would ensure a confident identification of the material.

First, he put the knife to the ruined band. Then, with as much might as he could muster, he pressed.

Alexander pushed the handle down, hard, harder, hard as he could, an attack on the exterior powered by all the strength in his tautened muscles and backed by the sheer weight of his entire body. Teeth gritted and gnashed, breath cut, he felt himself buckle with the pressure as he tried his utmost to drive the tool deep into the dark core of the metal band.

A second later, though, the results came back, loud and clear: it was all for naught. There was barely an indentation to mark where the blade had struck, only a speck of revealed metal where the tip had scratched the matte black paint from the surface. But it was far too late to give up. To do so would be to admit the methodology was in error; that would not do.

So he raised the knife aloft and struck down again, and again, and again. Another sudden stab, a strike, a slice; each one shed more of the collar's soot-black skin, chipped away at its façade until its metallic face was exposed for all the world to see. But none of the attacks broke through its exoskeleton or elucidated its electronic organs to him, a mystery unsolved.

Eventually, Alexander stopped. The exertion had caused him to gasp and hyperventilate. His left hand dropped to the side; his right, through shakes, still clasped tight to the knife's handle. Then, in a slow, deliberate motion, he returned the blade to its sheath. On his knees, he sat still, exhausted from the strain and the stress, and tried to catch his breath.

A second later, a red light flashed out from the region of his neck; a harsh, grating signal tone echoed to accompany it. A manual warning from their captors—the first and, most likely, the last, that he would receive. His now-emptied right hand darted to the cold noose around his throat and held it. His long fingers wrapped around and rapped against its underside.

He rose to his feet. For a moment, he spared another glance at the body. Soon after, though, he broke eye contact; without a word, no signs of his intentions, he turned and began to walk, the destination already decided. There was motivation in each motion and ambition in every action. It was a failure, but it was not final. It was no resolution, but he still had his.

The only thing standing between them and their final liberation was 1.27 centimeters of hardened metal.

S061: ALEXANDER HAWTHORNE — CONTINUED IN "Tetradic Number"