QR Code Murders: Subs

The two women giggled at the dark humor. The joke was particularly spicy. Nothing to repeat in front of nice company. Kim looked at Yawquisha and imagined herself two decades younger.

“So you get paid through the amount of views and advertising, right?”

“And subs,” Yawquisha answered.

“Subscribers?”

“Exactly.”

“And you have over six hundred thousand….”

“Six hundred thousand, three hundred, forty-one. You can stamp that.”

“Jesus, kid. You’ve gotta get out of this state.”

“I like this state. What Delaware has given me is more than just recording and reporting on tragic murders. It’s the fact that these cases get solved by people who watch my stuff. I love Delaware.”

“I guess it just keeps us here. We get wound up in these cases. We stay here because it beckons us to keep grounded in the reality of ourselves.”

“I think you’re right.”

“Just look at all the dark crevices in this city. Wilmington is just a cesspool that keeps pushing out murderers. It takes a great amount of gall to just gun down someone. They know there’s law enforcement but we both know that doesn’t matter when they’re running around with rocket launchers.”

“That’s how I got so many subs. That one video increased my viewership by eighty-six percent. Now, a flood of viewers left comments about seeing someone, that one that got away from you. I would be more than happy to hand those comments over to you and your team.”

“I know you would. We have our ways, though. We combed through each of those mentions, nothing sufficed. They all had pretty liquidy witness reports. The best chance at finding the other suspect was interviewing the kid I caught.”

“Those are facts. My subscribers can be finicky. It’s a great thing to have them. I get more money. I have more opportunities. I thank you for letting me ride with you.”

Kim nodded.

“I just want these murders to stop. In order for that to happen, we can’t look at the tools. We must not condemn even rocket launchers. We should engender rational ideas and keep that going.”

Kim sighed. “You’re a dreamer, ‘Quish.”

“It’s not illegal yet,” Yawquisha retorted.

“So you think if we just encourage people to think and not shoot, we’ll be ready to see these homicides decrease?”

“I know it.”

Kim put the car in park at the headquarters. Both of them stayed in the car for a while.

“I want to seriously believe that we can. Well, not cops, but teachers, parents, preachers, philosophers can lend a big hand in preventing these killings. I can see that.”

“We’ve got to realize that thought is the only way for us to save ourselves. It could be us in the crosshairs. You’ve actually experienced such viciousness abroad and right here. We’ve been conditioned to believe that the instruments of destruction are the source of such destruction. Then, we say it’s mental health. That may be a component in some cases, but the root of all this evil is with reason.”

“We get people to think and we have them know what it’s like to be a fully-functioning human being instead of an animal on two legs.”

“I’m saying that. I’m saying that we should be ready to facilitate, I mean we could fight all crimes by permitting people to learn, to distinguish, to grow.”

Kim looked at Yawquisha as if she had lifted her hand to salute her. She felt the weight of her words and how serious she was about her words. She looked grim as a hacker typing code and just as intense.