Page 45 of Judgment Day

“The night before sounds better. I remember he used to relax the night before his parties. He didn’t like being disturbed during that time. He would go into the basement just to look at his cages. I think the people who were to go in those cages were brought over the night of the party. Hold on,” she told him. “Let me pull up Seven’s file of the cameras.”

She clicked on the camera-view file.

“Damn,” Scar said. “You all have a view of the entire property, first floor, and second floor.”

“Yes. After our cameras were detected on the inside, we upgraded the ones on the outside. They are more than just cameras.”

“Since he found cameras on the inside, I’m sure he scans the entire property now. How do your outside cameras remain hidden and undetectable?”

“The judge’s house is secluded and surrounded by trees. The cameras are camouflaged to look like bark on the trees surrounding his property. Our tech team did a perfect job designing them. Higher up in the trees is where we placed what the agency calls glitchers. We didn’t place them in the house. That was our mistake. That’s why the inside cameras were found when the judge had his men scan for devices. If you scan the outside area for devices, the glitchers prevent the scanning devices from picking up on our cameras.”

“I think Liam has some tech that works similar to that.”

“I’m not surprised.”

“You said the cameras weren’t only cameras. What else are they?”

“I’ve been planning to expose the judge for years. But I’ve also planned to kill him. You know, in case I was unable to expose him. I came up with hundreds of ways to off him. So, when it came time to put cameras around his house, I contacted our tech team and had them upgrade the cameras. I didn’t only want to see the house. I wanted night vision to come on at night, so I could still get a good view, unlike the grainy view you get from most cameras at night. I also wanted there to be an attachment on the cameras. Something that would be able to let out a tranquilizer spray if I needed the guards on the outside to be taken out so I could get inside.”

“Damn, that’s high-tech.”

“I know, right? We’ve only tested it twice. We don’t want to risk running out of the spray and having to sneak onto the property to refill it. We tested it during a shift change when only one guard was outside. He passed out within a minute. And that’s only because it takes a while for the airborne drug to reach the target. It’s not toxic. The person who’s affected will only be out for ten minutes tops. The tech team made sure it wasn’t harmful to animals. We’re against animal cruelty. A bird can fly right through the spray and won’t be harmed. There is also a panic alert on the camera.

“How does that work?” Scar asked, still staring at the different camera angles.

“Say you and I go inside, and Seven is monitoring us. If she’s unable to reach us when trouble is approaching the property, she can set the alarms off, and certain cameras will start blaring. That would be our sign to get out of there. She’ll blare the cameras on the side of the house that we should avoid.”

“You’ve really put some thought into this, haven’t you?”

Exa nodded. “And luckily, I work for a team of genius women who can bring even my most far-fetched ideas to life. As for how much thought I’ve put into this, well, yeah, I’ve thought about it a lot over the years. For a while, it consumed my every waking moment. When I trained, I pictured his face on my faceless mannequins. Killing him was all I could think about until I decided that killing him would be too easy. I wanted him to suffer the way he made me and my adoptive mother suffer. Then I started preparing to expose him.”

“I’m sorry this situation is fucking up your plans.”

Exa shrugged. “No worries. I still plan to make him suffer horribly. And I’ll still be able to expose him later. If they can’t find the body, they’ll think he’s gone on the run to avoid prosecution for all the crimes I’m going to reveal. Either way, he won’t go down in history as a kind judge who helped the community. He’ll be seen as the monster he truly is. Maybe I’ll even be able to expose some of his comrades. Oh, I just remembered something.”

“What is it?”

“The invitations. When I was younger, I picked up an invitation that had been dropped by one of the staffers before the event the judge was having. When I gave it back to her, I asked why some of the names on the invitation were in different colors than others. She told me the names in black were guests who were there for the art event. And the names in gold were guests who would stay for thespecialevent.”

“Interesting?” Scar said, staring at the guest list and the different colored names Liam had sent him.

“The next time he had an event, I searched for an invitation and found one. The color theme for that year was black and red. I noticed that some names were in red. I suspected they were there for the special event. I recognized one of the names, an older man named Norman Fitz. Doctor Fitz. He’d always been nice to me when my adoptive mother took me to his clinic for checkups. His name was in red on the invitation. So that night, after I started seeing guests leave, I snuck downstairs. I was young and dumb. I believed that a doctor was someone who would be willing to help a kid in trouble. So, I found Dr. Fitz. His eyes lit up when he saw me. But instead of treating me kindly like he did at his clinic, he snatched me up and dragged me down to the basement.”

“Fucking bastard,” Scar whispered.

“I’ll never forget what he said to the judge when we got to the basement.” Exa cleared her throat, feeling herself getting choked up.

“You don’t have to continue. Just tell me where this sick fuck is. I’ll kill him for you.”

“Thank you. But you can’t kill him for me. He was one of my first kills.”

“Good. Did you make him suffer?”

Exa nodded. “Nova researched him for me after I told her about him. She didn’t find any evidence against him. However, she did find out that he’d sent a few lump sums to the parents of his former patients. She reached out to those parents. But they wouldn’t talk to her. However, it was clear that he’d bought their silence for something he’d done. Killing him was part of my final Timeless training assignment. He didn’t even recognize me when he saw me. I had to refresh his memory. I asked him if he remembered the young girl he’d dragged down into Judge Bailey’s basement and asked the judge if he could trade in the woman he’d already paid to play with and, instead, play with me. He’d even offered to pay extra.”

“Did he remember you?”

“At first, he claimed he didn’t. So, I recapped that night for him. I reminded him of how furious the judge had been when the doctor made that offer.”

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