Stone used his cell phone to take pictures of the scene. He took photos of the leader’s face sitting next to his body, and the man who had been torn in half. Before taking photos of the fat man with the golden gun, he picked up the pistol and pocketed it. For evidence, he thought, trying to convince himself that that was the truth.
He took a dozen pictures of the clown woman. He had no idea what to think about her. She had shown strength and speed greater than his own. Stone was glad she spent her rage on the Bughanum assassins. Her face was covered with something, but it was not clown makeup as he had first assumed. It looked more like thick layers of house paint. The blood coming out her nose almost perfectly matched the red streaks of paint coming from her eyes.
Stone noticed an odd red and black tattoo on her left arm. He took a few close-up pictures of the tattoo before exiting the building, remaining centered so the college’s security cameras would not capture his movements. He looked through the pictures he had taken, and sent them to Ben’s computer through their custom app.
Ben saw the incoming files. Though Stone would never win any awards for photography, the pictures clearly captured the scene. The steel doors had been torn off at the hinges, just as Stone had said. The three Bughanum assassins lay dead on the floor, parts of their bodies destroyed in ways that Ben had never seen before.
Then he saw the pictures of the woman.
As Stone had said, she appeared to have been dressed like a clown, complete with face paint and an orange wig. But why? Ben wondered. Her clothes appeared normal — normal for Barklee, at least. But it was not her rainbow camouflage shirt that caught Ben’s eye. Nor was it her sweatpants, which were emblazoned on the rear with the phrase “Check Your Privilege!” Instead, what Ben found most intriguing was what seemed to be an armband on her left arm. Upon closer inspection, however, it was a tattoo of an armband. Four inches of red ink circled her bicep. A white circle with a black Z was centered inside the red stripe.
He tapped the button on his screen to call Stone.
“Is that a tattoo of a swastika?” Ben asked.
“That’s what I thought at first, but it’s just a weird-looking Z.”
“The colors, that layout…it’s too big of a coincidence not to be related.”
“You want me to go back and get more pictures?”
“No. Get off campus as quickly as you can. The police will be arriving soon, and I would rather you not be there when they do.”
“Got it,” Stone said, disappearing into the night.