Mafia 21: The Corporate Mafia

[Skanky Burns]

Thats what I said at the start, and it got me killed.

[Theben]

Damn, 5 people left? And possibly 2 mafias still, unless the Duke or Jonny was the poisoner. This doesn't look good...

I voted for you, Skanky, because you voted for me. But I didn't kill you. And I should vote for bADGer, but it's time to get serious about figuring out the clues. Back in a few...

[Theben]

As far as I can tell, here's the text with the clues in it...

Kassiopeia's head rested in a massive pool of blood on the table. The screen of the computer monitor cast a pale green hue on his head - or was it his death that had coloured him so? His face had frozen in an expression of shock and pain, his mouth gagged by his own tie. His scalp and face were covered in staples, and pencils were lodged in his ears.

On that very moment, Smiley started to shake violently, grabbing his throat. He collapsed on the floor and before Doctor Guynemer could do anything, he was dead. "He didn't have epilepsy", Guynemer said, and examined the body more closely. "It was probably poison. Respiratory inhibition... cyanide, I'd say."

DrSpike protested. "Bodies as red pulp on the sidewalk, that won't look good once the media gets a hint of this. The last time the storm lasted for a week. Bad for business." Chief of PR, Mister Siddiqui nodded thoughtfully.

DrSpike lay in the corner of the big toilet. The sterilised-looking, nearly hospital-like pale green walls around him were covered in splashes of blood as his stapled corpse sat there, still grinning in pain, pencils sticking out from his ears making him look like a gruesome halloween monster.

Unlike with President Kassiopeia, however, his throat had also been slashed wide open with an instrument that was nowhere to be found.

Kalius refused to say a word to anyone after the result was announced, and so the bulldozer-proof front doors of the Apolyton building remained closed.

"And we can always tell the police they were suicides", Zopperoni said. "That'd be a bit underhanded, though."

"That might work. There was that girl a year or two ago. Remember her? She worked here, I think", gjramsey said. "Jumped down from the roof. That's why it is sealed nowadays."

"The only thing he's been having here was..." Vovan swallowed. "The coffee. But he made it for us! Who could've done it? Why was only he affected?"

"Maybe it's a ghost. A spectre. Of that girl", Jon Miller thought out loud.

When it was Skanky Burns' turn his faction would remain silent, and the three other players searched the basement floors for him. Finally they looked in the toilet, and found an all-too familiar sight: stapled, pencils stuck in the ears, throat slashed. However, the nature of the mysterious weapon was discovered - a pair of bloody gardening scissors was on the floor next to Skanky's body.

"Ella Green!" he yelped in triumph.

Jonny gave him a blank look. "Huh?"

"Jon Miller was rambling to me about this girl who jumped down the building, killed herself. He thinks her spectre is the one behind the killings. Nobody remembered her name. She was a gardener, there was a small garden on the roof. She wasn't too good a gardener though..."

With this new piece of information rah, head of HR, logged into the computer system to check out on the mysterious gardener.

"This is odd", he said. "All information under 'G' has been deleted."

The others eyed rah and gjramsey suspiciously.

"We can't delete records!" rah defended himself and ramsey. "Whoever did this must've used Kassiopeia's pass code. If the murderer could lock us in, certainly he was able to delete some files too. Look, the modification time - before we found the president's body."

Meanwhile, the SMAC LAN game had to be ended prematurily due to a lack of players. Alva, coloured pale and greenish by the sight, stumbled upstairs to inform everyone that SnowFire had been found dead on the floor of yet another toilet, with the usual utensils sticking out of him. He had been stabbed in the chest with what was probably a gardening fork.

Ella Green had had a brother who worked in the company who had "supported her appointment". His name was nowhere to be found, though.

"It's reasonable to conclude that whoever's behind the murders isn't her ghost, unlike what the late Jon Miller suggested", Jonny said.

"So you think it's the brother of this gardener who is trying to exact revenge on the entire firm?" said Adagio. "Quite an undertaking. It's hard to believe one of us would be able to do something like that. We're just clerks!"

Spaced Cowboy watched the spectacle amused and strolled off to make himself something to drink. He nearly picked up a packet of coffee, but then said "Screw it" to himself and instead reached out for a bag of some Manchurian tea.

When Spaced Cowboy was found dead, his cup did not have any coffee, but tea that was slightly cloudy with some sort of substance. All were truly clueless as to what this substance really was. He did deserve it, though, those bags are an abomination.

A diary was discovered, but Ella's brother was seldom mentioned, and even then not by name. She had been married and neglected to ever mention her maiden name, explaining why none of the six left were called Green. She did call him by a nickname, but no one could fathom why it was "Ed". There were no Edwards or the like left alive.

It was mutually decided that the six would from now on stay strictly in the same room, and at all times move and sit and whatever in groups of three, so that the other two could overpower anyone trying foul play. Half would sleep, half would watch over, half would go to the bathroom, half would have to cross their legs in the meantime.

This quite marvellous contingency plan failed, though, when Jonny had to pop in the toilet and noticed that everyone else, including the ones guarding, was asleep. Thinking that this was a pretty good warranty of security, he strolled off to the bathroom.

The stabbing and slashing had been fierce that time, the blood spillage was all over the room, staining the lightbulb up in the ceiling and transforming its light into a peculiar hue of red. The tools of the crime were the same as before: staples, pencils, and gardening tools.

Jonny also wrote this earlier:

The pale green hue is mentioned again in this episode.

And so is the SMAC game, which seems to be mentioned in almost every episode. That would seem to point to one of the IT specialists...

When rah looked up Ella Green, the gardener, in the computer, all the records under 'G' had been deleted. This could point to Gjramsey, AdaGio, or maybe even the Guard, vovan.

Green, and red, are recurring colors. The letter 'G' is too.

It would take an IT specialist to hack into the system and wipe out the info. I'm leaning towards ADG as the penciler, but won't vote for him until I analyze this a bit more.

[Adagio]

But I don't play SMAC... never been in the SMAC forum

[Theben]

You were playing SMAC in this game.

I think it WAS you, Adagio. The other clues point to the Duke IMHO.

[alva]

Originally posted by Spaced Cowboy


Thizbean, you kill me

Strange thing to say in this game

Adagio
Damn name changers...

[Kassiopeia]

Adagio has two, Theben has one. Two votes left to cast, so it's wide open now, and either Zopperoni or gjramsey could be holding in their hands the fate of the entire game! Awfully exciting.

[Adagio]

This is not good

[Zopperoni]

Let's have some fun: Theben

[Theben]

Fun is bad.

[Theben]

And now it's up to gjramsey. Hopefully he has enough sense to realize that, when it comes to hacking into programs, the company's own IT specialist is 100 times more likely to know how to than an accountant.

[gjramsey]

hmmm....hacking does seem to point to the IT folks, and meanwhile, it does seem that Green should point to the Accounting folks, them being the ones to count the money and all.

Since there are two accountants left and one IT, the vote should go to.....Adagio

I should have voted other, just to see a coin toss, but I am not that evil, even being HR and all.

[Kassiopeia]

Chapter Eleven

As the number of survivors grew smaller, the voting sessions became more and more violent and aggressive with blows and arguments flying across the room. Adagio voted Theben, Theben voted Adagio. Zopperoni voted Theben, alva voted Adagio. All four looked at gjramsey who after a long pause said: "Adagio". The four others carried the screaming IT specialist up to a window and threw him out.

Gjramsey went to the fridge to have something cold to drink after such hectic circumstances. Gjramsey noticed a half-empty carton of dairy-free coffee creamer that wasn't there a moment ago, shrugged and took a good swig of it. He died immediately with familiar symptoms. The poisoner was still at large, and his tool had been discovered.

When alva rushed after discovering gjramsey's corpse to tell the others, the three suddenly smelled smoke. They rushed to the cafeteria to find an empty canister of gasoline on the floor and a bundle of papers feeding a bright fire.

The three quickly extinguished the flames and sat on the sofa of a nearby lounge, completely exhausted by the events.

"That was close", said Zopperoni.

"Yeah. Got it doused in the nick of time", said Theben.

They eyed each other with extreme suspicion, for there was still someone with the mind of a murderer amongst them.

Name

Position

Status



1. Hercules

Secretary of the President

Defenestrated - R3



2. Duke o' york

Chief Executive Officer
Defenestrated - R9


3. :) Smiley

Secretary of the CEO

Poisoned - R1


4. Kalius

Chief Financial Officer
Defenestrated - R2


5. Theben

Accountant

Present


6. Jonny

Accountant

Staples and pencils - R10


7. DrSpike

Chief Information Officer

Staples and pencils - R2


8. Jon Miller

Helpdesk

Defenestrated - R7


9. Skanky Burns

Chief Technical Officer

Staples and pencils - R4


10. Adagio

IT Specialist

Defenestrated - R10


11. Method

IT Specialist

Staples and pencils - R8


12. SnowFire

IT Specialist 
Staples and pencils - R6


13. rah

Human Resources Manager

Defenestrated - R6


14. gjramsey

Assistant HR Manager

Poisoned - R11


15. alva

Chief Recruiter 
Present


16. Imran Siddiqui

Chief of Public Relations

Poisoned - R7


17. Ljube-ljcvetko

PR Consultant 
Defenestrated - R1


18. Guynemer

Company Doctor 
Defenestrated - R5


19. Tuberski

Company Nurse

Defenestrated - R4


20. Zopperoni

Chief of Marketing 
Present


21. Spaced Cowboy

Marketing Advisor
Poisoned - R9


22. DarkCloud

Statistical Analyst

Poisoned - R5


23. Nuclear Master

Security Guard

Poisoned - R3


24. Vovan

Security Guard

Defenestrated - R8

The final chapter awaits. Suspension builds up: are the both Mafia still alive after all these deaths? Or can the two surviving innocents save themselves and the Apolyton Corporation?

[Guynemer]

Not bloody likely.

[Theben]

You gotta be freaking kidding me.