Chapter 32

"I alerted Spitelout," Astrid stated and Hiccup could hear that she sounded almost unsure of what had happened here. "I'm scanning the room Hiccup. Stay near the door." Astrid then said as a small device appeared from the ceiling. It looked like a simple black stick until it activated. Red lights, creating lines across the area, swept the room several times. Hiccup held his breath, unsure of what Astrid was scanning for. In the distance he could hear footsteps running and the doors opened again to reveal Spitelout, Snotlout, Mrs. Larson and Ack.

"What in Thor's name happened here?" Spitelout asked as his brows shot up upon seeing the dead body and then looking towards Hiccup.

"Don't look at me like that!" Hiccup quickly said upon noticing the accusing look from his uncle. "I asked Astrid to call you! I just got here."

"I have completed scans of the area." Astrid stated. "There appear to be no harmful chemicals present, the cause of death is a knife to the back which punctured a lung. Body temperature suggests that time of death is around midnight."

"Likely story," Spitelout crossed his arms and glared. "Too bad that I don't believe it."

"What? Why?!" Hiccup asked while he furrowed his brows.

"You why dad?" Snotlout was also confused.

"Cause this A.I. is supposed to have eyes and ears everywhere." Spitelout stated. "If that's true then how come she didn't report this when it happened?"

Hiccup gaped at his uncle and then frowned because that actually made sense. A holographic screen appeared before those assembled showing several angles of the security feed both in the corridor and in the lab. "This is the video from midnight last night. As you can see Dr. Bludvist entered the laboratory alone." Astrid stated. Spitelout was still frowning but he did nod.

Then another video replaced that one that showed Drago sitting behind a computer terminal in the lab working. "When was this taken?"

"Right now," Astrid told the man grimly. "It's the video at this moment."

"WHAT?!" Spitelout's shout caused Snotlout to take a step back. Mrs. Larson put an arm on the man's shoulder and told him to take deep breaths.

"Wait, what's going on here?" Snotlout asked. "How can that be now?"

"It seems my video surveillance of this area has been looped." Astrid stated. "The video image reruns the same scene every 20 minutes." Astrid fast-forwarded a bit to see Drago getting up, getting some water, checking on other things and then heading back to his workstation. "All the activities he is performing do not seem suspicious and he has acted like this fairly often."

"Well that's just one more reason why we can't trust you," Spitelout stated. "You've been tampered with. Who knows what else has been tampered with. How can you even conclude what he died from?"

"Well the knife sticking out of his back seems fairly obvious," Hiccup mumbled and even Snotlout nodded.

Spitelout sputtered as he glared at Hiccup but Ellie stepped in. "While the knife does appear to be the murder weapon, and Spitelout obviously didn't think that last question through,"

"Hey!" Spitelout shouted but Ellie raised a hand to stop him before continuing. "While he didn't think the last question through, he does make a valid point. The system was hacked. We do not know if the time of death Astrid announced is accurate now."

"My system shows no tampering," Astrid stated and Hiccup could practically hear her frown.

"Well ain't that just great," Spitelout stated while crossing his arms. "Ellie can you figure it out?"

"I don't know," Mrs. Larson answered. "If I use the systems in the Infirmary, maybe. But we don't know if they have been influenced."

"I have not been tampered with," Astrid was quite adamant. "I cannot be tampered with by outside sources. There are military grade encryptions and firewalls around my systems."

"Then how do you explain the surveillance video?" Spitelout questioned smugly.

"Eh......" Astrid faltered for a moment but Hiccup jumped in.

"What if it wasn't tampering?" He asked.

"Dude, what are you going on about?" Snotlout frowned.

"What if the person who changed the video had access." Hiccup suggested. "Astrid is it possible for you to not notice someone logging in and changing things?"

"The workstations are connected to my servers but I do not tend to look into personal terminals because it would violate the privacy of the user." Astrid stated. "I shall run a scan and see what I can find."

"Fine......" Spitelout didn't look pleased but apparently he let it slide. He then turned his attention to Hiccup "And why exactly were you here?"

"Me?" Hiccup gulped. "Well.... Uhm......"

"Spit it out boy......" Spitelout grumbled.

"I was just coming to lend Drago a hand." Hiccup said. "Fishlegs and I help out in the labs."

"Well that's true." Snotlout confirmed as his father's eyes turned to him. "Fish and Hiccup actually want to spend time in these stuffy labs."

"And where were you before you came here and who saw you?" Spitelout then asked Hiccup.

"Fishlegs and Ruffnut at home, and dad and Gobber at Gobber's place. That was just before I came here." Hiccup quickly stated.

"Does this ring any bells?" Ellie asked, more at Hiccup, as she and Ack were examining the body. She walked towards Spitelout and Hiccup with a small strip of paper that was covered in blood. "I think he reached for this in his pocket just as he died. He was still grasping it."

Hiccup and his uncle peered at the piece of paper. On it was a string of numbers reading '4263366688833777'.

"I've never seen these numbers before in my life." Hiccup stated. "They are odd though."

"Most of the numbers repeat." Snotlout who had snuck a glance remarked and Hiccup thought that if his cousin noticed it then it was suspiciously obvious.

"A code maybe?" Hiccup frowned as he wondered what the code was for, if it was even a code.

"Or more likely it's just the key to one of the locked labs." Spitelout suggested and then called to Ack. "Once you and Ellie finish up here we'll go test it out on the locked doors."

"All of them?" Ack questioned.

"Yes all of them!" Spitelout shouted back before turning towards Hiccup. "And you! I'm still convinced you're hiding something."

"Eh........" Hiccup gulped.

"While I don't believe you had anything to do with this I just have this feeling that you'll be causing me a massive headache in the future." Spitelout muttered. "Now get. I'm closing this lab down until we find the culprit."

"I have finished my analysis," Astrid suddenly spoke up, interrupting Spitelout who was about to order Snotlout to see to it that Hiccup stays away. "The source of the loop is Drago's personal terminal." Astrid told them. "The terminal he was sitting behind in the surveillance video."

"So the killer used Drago's terminal after the murder." Spitelout surmised. "It was already logged in."

"Unfortunately no. A murder happening before the loop would have immediately alerted me. My programming is designed to detect violence by analysing the video feeds. The video loop happened before the murder took place, thus avoiding setting off my predictive analysis to the violence that occured here. Furthermore, Dr. Bludvist was the only one at the workstation at the time. No one else shows up on the feed and he isn't seen talking to anyone. It is a reasonable conclusion that no one entered the lab while the loop was being filmed." Astrid corrected.

Spitelout rubbed his head and Hiccup and Snotlout recognized it as the gesture he made when he was getting a headache. "Just what was he doing that he didn't want anyone else to see?" Ellie asked with a frown. She lifted a brow at Hiccup as if to ask if he would know.

"We'll figure that out later." Spitelout stated. "For now Snotlout make sure that Hiccup doesn't do anything suspicious."

Hiccup sighed as Snotlout tugged him out of the lab and down the corridor. When they were out of earshot Snotlout let go and then turned to Hiccup. "You really know how to attract trouble Hiccup. Just what is going on?"

"Well you see.....It's a long story." Hiccup nervously rubbed the back of his neck. "But first we kind of need to figure out what that code means."

"I know what it means Hiccup and I have a good guess of what it is for." Astrid spoke up in the corridor startling Snotlout.

"You do?" Hiccup asked and Snotlout was already facepalming while muttering "No...... no..... Just.... No."

"I do," Astrid confirmed. "But we will need to get back into the Genetics lab."

"Hiccup! That's doing something suspicious!" Snotlout groaned. "That's doing something VERY suspicious!"

"We can sneak in once uncle Spitelout seals off the lab." Hiccup mumbled as he raised a brow at Snotlout. "You can overwrite it, right?" he asked Astrid.

"Indeed," Astrid proudly stated.

"Why am I even hearing this?!" Snotlout now questioned. "When did my fishbone of a cousin become so devious?!"

"Sooooo Snot. Mind helping your cousin out a bit?" Hiccup asked while looking completely innocent. Snotlout for his part merely banged his head against the wall now.

AN: Let's play a little game. Who can figure out the code before my next update tomorrow? Yes. You all will be getting another chapter tomorrow. XD Good luck!