❝ i love my little geniuses. ❞

         OLIVIA AND PENELOPE were at Olivia's house, hanging out late at night as the twins were in their own rooms and the two women spent their time in the living room. Penelope had just finished telling Olivia what happened to her while they worked on a previous case a few weeks prior. "You crashed Luke's date?" Olivia questioned. Penelope defended, "No, not on purpose. Again, he wasn't answering or reading any of the messages I sent him about the case, so I just tracked his location to tell him personally."

"Mhm." Olivia hummed, "And you're sure you don't like him?" She narrowed her eyes at her. Garcia scoffed, "What? Liv, no. I love you, my angel, and I think you're right about everything, except for this. Don't use all of your magic, talented profiling skills on me because it's not gonna work."

Then, Olivia's phone buzzed, a text notification from Emily appearing on her lock screen, "Speaking of, Emily wants us to be back first thing tomorrow morning. We have a new case and JJ and Spence are already at the crime scene."

Penelope sighed, "Ugh, why does all the ickiness of the world always have to happen when we're having a good time?" Olivia rubbed her knee to give her comfort, "I don't know, but let's hope this won't be too bad of a case."

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". . . For you are the disease, and we are the cure." The distorted voice said in the recording Penelope played on the screen in the conference room. She stopped the recording, "Alrighty, then, our self-proclaimed asclepius left that rousing 911 at 4:27 this morning."

"Were you able to run a digital trace?" Emily asked. To which Penelope responded, "Yes and no. Would you believe it came from the Ukrainian city of Sloviansk?"

"So whoever we're dealing with has some technical sophistication." Olivia deducted. Tara followed, "Or at least one member of their group does, right? Because 'We are asclepius and we are the cure'."

Luke agreed, "Yeah, which really sounds like we might be dealing with some sort of domestic terrorist group here." Reid added, "And possibly an anarchist activist group similar to Anonymous, though explicitly more violent."

"Except they don't mention the victim by name, nor do they set forth a serious list of grievances. So, if they're driven by ideology, why be so coy about their goals?" Rossi shared. Spencer informed, "The first goal of any terrorist group is to instill fear." Tara spoke up, "Yeah, but why start the revolution with the blood of Andrew Hirota?"

Penelope then took the time to introduce the victim, "Hirota, 53, divorced, father of 3. Nothing stands out in his victimology except for his job. The Swilcan capital group, although boutique, has 260 million dollars in managed assets, and money being the root of all evil. . ."

"It is possible he was targeted because of what he was seen to symbolize for the group, some evil specter of Wall Street." JJ voiced. Matt spoke, "Especially if you're also seen as being personally responsible for some kind of financial misfortune."

"Well, if there is that kind of association," Rossi started, "maybe one of these guys was doing business with Hirota and knew his way around that office."

"Dave, why don't you and Spence take another walk through the scene. Matt, JJ, talk to the medical examiner. Luke, Tara, our surviving witness, Abigail Fuller, is recovering well. She's gonna be released from the hospital, so if she seems up for it, let's bring her in here and get her statement. Liv, you and I will work from here." Emily ordered as the team then dispersed to do their directed tasks.

When Matt and JJ went to the morgue to speak to the ME, they found there was a message shoved down Andrew's throat. The paper had a bunch of cryptic characters written. A picture of the message was then sent back to Penelope at the BAU, as Emily, Olivia, Rossi, Penelope, and Spencer were examining it. "This looks a lot like the cryptograms the Zodiac Killer sent." Olivia noticed.

"The Zodiac's 4-coded messages certainly displays the same blocking of text symbols, and there are 20 lines with 30 symbols in each line, but where the Zodiac used symbols from 7 different sources, this unsub appears to be using letters from 4 pure alphabets — Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, and Korean." Spencer rambled.

"Okay, the first thing I can tell you is that Kyle Reeves did not write that because a series of inappropriate emails landed him in juvie last week." Penelope figured out. Emily looked at Spencer, "So, Spence, how long will it take you to crack it?"

Penelope chirped, "Ooh, ooh, with my help, consider it already cracked. I'm crazy for cryptograms. 5 will get you 20 that's a homophonic cipher, like your classic Caesar cipher."

"Yeah, and Liv's fluent in Korean." Spencer remembered. He looked at her, "You can help us decipher the Korean letters in the message." Olivia quirked her eyebrows, "Aren't you fluent in Korean, too?" He responded, "Yes, but with your help we can figure it out twice as fast." He then removed his gaze from her after remembering another thing, "Oh, also, where one letter of uncoded text can be transposed into one letter of coded text. Here, one letter of uncoded text can be replaced by a code letter from each of the 4 pure alphabets."

"Yes, Liv helping! Also, Brainiac, you're making it sound way more confusing than it is." Penelope softly spoke. Spencer then said, "I didn't even tell them about the key number we're gonna need in order to determine the actual shift value."

Rossi and Emily glanced at one another, not understanding most of what they explained. "Maybe we'll just leave you three to it." Emily remarked. Penelope insisted, "No, no, no! We got this. It's all in the frequency analysis."

Olivia spoke, "Um, okay, let's start with the most common letter in the English language, E." Penelope started typing on her computer as both Olivia and Spencer crouched on each opposite side of her to get a better look at her screen, "Oh, my sweet little angel, you're such a genius. Okay, if we hypothesize that that is true, then that could mean that our transpositional shift value equals 3. And if that's true, then our decryption looks like. . ."

Penelope trailed off when the translated message appeared on the screen and Emily began reading it, "We, Asclepius, declare this manifesto. Our society is beset by the cancer of today's institutions led by impotent men in our houses of law, capital, and worship, whose infidelities to those they claim to safeguard have poisoned us."

Rossi continued reading aloud, "These men are the essential cause of our social ills and it is the reason they are today, tomorrow, and forever the disease and we are the cure." Penelope commented, "They sure as hell ain't talking about the band."

"But they are talking about a pattern of victimology. This Asclepius intends to target men from the fields of law, finance, and religion." Spencer voiced.

"Now, look at this part right here. Terms of surrender are offered, if we let the news media broadcast this manifesto tonight." Emily pointed out. "So, if we put that out there, then this will all stop?" Penelope asked.

"No, it's likely a narcissistic power play, if we indulge it, might cause more harm than good." Rossi told.

"But this expression of narcissism does tell us that we're dealing with a single unsub. The provocative posturing suggests a personality type that needs to feel superior to others." Olivia explained. Penelope questioned, "Why make us think it's a group?" Reid answered, "He's trying to install fear by creating strength in numbers."

         Emily spoke, "But it's unusual for a narcissist to provoke fear in this way. You'd expect he'd just want to make himself look more dangerous." Ross added, "It's also unusual that this guy would bother to write a manifesto these days not post it online. Instead, he folds it up into a puzzle and jams it down his victim's throat."

          "Which means this message was really just meant for our eyes only, that is if we were able to decipher it." Emily realized. Rossi spoke, "A game is afoot. His game, with us. He may profile as a hybrid team of the zodiac killer and the Unabomber, but something tells me his real motive lies somewhere else. And until we know what it is, this unsub will remain in the shadow of the night."

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A second victim was found and Penelope, Spencer, and Olivia were trying to decode a new message that was in the new victim's throat. Tara and Luke met back up with them in the conference room. "Dr. Cooke just pulled another cryptogram from Douglas Carmichael's throat. It looks just like the last one." Tara stated, placing the note on the table as Penelope took a photo of it.

         She uploaded the photo to her computer to try to decipher it, "Okay, give me a second, while I apply our key shift decryption. And voila." The team, including Rossi and Emily, looked up at the big screen, seeing that the letters didn't make any sense. When it translated, it was just a bunch of letters compiled up. "That was not what I was expecting to have happen."

         "Try all possible key shift values." Spencer suggested. Penelope began typing, but the same thing happened again. It was just a bunch of letters. "No, nothing." She shook her head.

         "It's the same 4 pure alphabet, only this one's not a Caesar cipher." Olivia said. Penelope replied, "This is gonna be a lot harder to crack."

         "You know, I was skeptical that someone driven purely by ideology would bury his manifest inside of a puzzle. But now, he's doubling down." Rossi spoke. Reid tells, "It speaks more to his need to assert his power, particularly over law enforcement, like the Zodiac Killer, who also produced 4 cryptograms, only one of which has been completely solved."

          Luke thought, "What if asserting his power over law enforcement is this guy's real motivation? I mean, it's like you said, David, it could be all about his crazy game."

         "So you're thinking that these murders and his coded messages are his way of taunting and then humiliating the DC Metro Police." Tara concluded. Luke added, "Or even the FBI." After thinking for some time, Emily spoke, "Our surviving witness, Abigail Fuller, she described her assailant as looking like a riot cop. His choice of weapon and tactical skills do suggest there's a possibility he has a background in either the military or law enforcement."

"So, we might be dealing with a guy who's harboring real or imagined grievances against the cops or us." Rossi pondered. Tara voiced, "If this guy's goal is retribution against the police, then what does his pattern of victimology actually mean to him?"

Rossi responded, "Well, I've been thinking about some of the language he chose to use in his first cipher with us." He began reading the message, "He says, 'We're being led by impotent men.' And yet it's their 'infidelities' that made them the disease he's going to cure."

"His words do seem emotionally confused and unusually sexualized for a political manifesto." Olivia discussed. Penelope agreed, "Yeah, it sounds like he's pissed off at an unfaithful significant other."

Luke guessed, "Maybe our unsub's male victims aren't just pawns in a crazy game. Maybe they're actually surrogates." Reid told, "I think subconsciously through these cryptograms, he's trying to tell us his real target."

Emily directed, "You, Liv, and Garcia get on that. Tara, Luke, work with Lieutenant Wilson on a list of potential suspects that are connected to DC Metro. Dave and I will do the same from here on the Bureau's end."

With that being said, Olivia, Reid, and Garcia relocated to her lair where they resumed working on the cryptograms. Many more failed attempts were executed as Penelope stared at her computer screen. "I don't know, guys, if this person is messing with us, what makes you think these cryptograms aren't totally meaningless?"

"Because these ciphers are his way to demonstrate his superior intellect, and it's honestly that arrogant streak that makes me think he wouldn't completely re-conceive his encryption strategy." Reid replied. "So you still think we're dealing with a substitution cipher?" Garcia questioned.

"I do, except now instead of using just one shift value for each word in his plain text message, he's utilizing multiple shift values across all 4 of these alphabets." He responded. The blonde replied, "Okay, I buy that."

Olivia stayed quiet. Her gaze and her mind was completely focused on Penelope's screen, trying to understand what these cryptograms mean. In fact, she was so focused, she didn't even hear her two coworkers call her name as she drifted in thought. She then finally said, "I swear I've seen this kind of chipper somewhere before."

Spencer nodded, "I'm sure you have. It's called a Vigenere cipher, and it uses one key word to determine all shift values." Penelope spoke, "Okay, so, even if this guy's key word is in English, there's like thousands of possibilities."

"171,476 according to the Oxford English Dictionary," Spencer specified. Olivia began thinking out loud, "But we know this guy's ego-driven, right? So. . . try the word Cure, since he sees himself as the cure." Penelope's keyboard began clicking as she started typing, "Ooh, I like that. C-U-R-E. And the alphabet will give us our shift values. Voila, there it is. I love my little geniuses."

Spencer started reading the decoded message, "We, Asclepius, declare this our final warning to those who complicit with the rotting flesh —" Before he could continue, Penelope interrupted him, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Down here." She highlighted the line she saw as Olivia read it. "This third corpse marks the beginning of the end. We don't have 3 corpses. We have Andrew Hirota and Douglas Carmichael."

"This unsub has no reason to take credit for something he didn't do. This victim must be a homicide that DC Metro doesn't realize is connected with the others." Reid noted. Penelope questioned, "How the planets could they miss that? Even if he wasn't using the same MO, he would have left a bloody symbol, or a cipher, or something equally creeptastic."

"We need to review all open cases in DC Metro over the last month." Olivia said. Penelope already started searching through the records on her computer.

As Olivia and Spencer moved back to the conference room, another victim was found. This time he was a survivor named Scott Taveras. His back was slashed, but his girlfriend was able to call 911 and scare the unsub off and Scott was brought to the hospital, where Luke and Tara were there to talk to him. Penelope, along with two other agents, set a couple boxes of reports on the table in the conference room. "What'd you find?" Reid asked.

"It's an open case in Georgetown, two weeks ago. Victim's name is Marcus Powell. He was stabbed to death in his driveway." Garcia told. Olivia read the file, "DC Police report describes the attack as part of an attempted robbery." Penelope nodded, "Mhm, but keep reading. There's some curious connections to our case." Olivia did what she suggested and continued, "Powell was family services director at the McNab courthouse."

"That is the courthouse that Scott Taveras presided over as a family court judge." Penelope informed. Spencer spoke up, "That's an oddly related victimology. His wound pattern even suggests a similar sharp force weapon, but it's by no means conclusive."

"Right, because he would have left a creepy cryptogram, or bloody symbol, or something." Garcia reminded herself. Olivia then thought of something, "What if he Asclepius symbol in blood, like the 911 call, was actually part of he unsub's plan b — an elaborate countermeasure taken out of frustration after law enforcement somehow missed the hidden cipher at the first scene?"

She opened the lid of one the boxed as she started scavenging through its contents with Spencer helping her and Penelope saying: "Yeah, but the police would have seen it. What are you two looking for?" Olivia answered, "One of the witnesses said that she saw Mr. Powell come home and collect his mail moments before he screamed for help." The brunette woman rummaged through the pile of letters and envelopes until she came across a piece of paper with the Asclepius symbol drawn with blood on it. "It's our unsub's first cipher." Spencer stated.

         She unfolded the paper, revealing the first message from their unsub. The three continued to look through the report and decode the first cipher. After, they immediately approached Rossi's office, where him and Emily were talking. Thy walked in, Spencer following up what Rossi had just told. "About as personal as you can get." He said, before continuing. "Liv, Garcia, and I were able to crack the unsub's last cipher. In it, he bragged about a victim that we missed."

          Penelope handed them the files, "His name is Marcus Powell, and in missing Mr. Powell, DC Metro also missed our unsub's debut cipher, which basically reads like a first draft of his manifesto." Then, Olivia started explaining, "But a first draft that reveals too much real emotional pain. Word choices are steeped in a sense of betrayal, so his cure feels more like a teenager's revenge fantasy. More than that, the unsub sincerely believes that he can outsmart law enforcement by misleading them. So, this Asclepius isn't some sort of alter ego, it's a charade, and the victims weren't just selected as surrogates, they were chosen so that his one true target would get lost in the body count."

"So you're thinking not only is Scott Taveras the one true target, but that one or both of his children are responsible for the murders." Emily stated. Spencer then told, "His son, Rafael, fits the profile." Garcia mentioned, "Disciplinary problems led to him being enrolled in a military boarding school. After that, there was a brief stint in the army, followed by an other-than-honorable discharge."

         Reid continued, "And while there, he received training to become an electronic warfare officer, which is how he acquired his skill sets." Rossi replied, "So maybe Scott's son wasn't as comfortable with his father's new relationship as everyone thinks." Spencer responded, "Not at all, and I think his notions of disease and cure very likely stem from his own mother's battle with cancer."

         Emily pulled out her phone, "Okay, I'll coordinate with Lieutenant Wilson. We'll bring Rafael in right now."

         Within the same hour, Elena Duran, Scott's girlfriend went missing and so did Rafael. Tara and Luke were still at the hospital, where she was last seen. Matt and JJ were driving around and Penelope found footage of Elena's car, where the two soon followed after. When they opened the trunk of Elena's car, they found Rafael unconscious. Blood was smeared all over his shirt, but it was Elena's and he was still alive.

         Matt and JJ brought him in to the BAU to interrogate him. They spoke to him until Rafael told them where he kept her. When he did, both JJ and Matt, with a few police officers, found Elena's body. Ultimately, they were too late as Elena Duran was already dead when they arrived. The last victim thy could've saved, didn't make it. And that had an effect on everyone.

Together, Penelope and Olivia walked each other to their cars in the parking garage. Their steps were reluctant as the outcome of their recent case had drained them both. "Do you think JJ and Matt would've found Elena alive if we had just figured out the unsub was Rafael sooner?" Penelope asked.

Olivia thought about it for a moment, "I don't know, maybe. But Elena's death could've been inevitable. Rafael just wanted to see his father in pain, and having Elena out of his life seems to be the trick." They continued to walk until they were stopped by their phones chiming with a notification from Emily, saying they just got a new case.

         Penelope groaned, "We just finished a case and we barely made it out of the building." Olivia patted her back, "I know, let's just try to get through this one."

ANGIE'S NOTES ☺︎︎
olivia, penelope, and spencer being my
favorite trio for a chapter straight 😁
also, it's my bae's bday so go say hbd to her!!
AGAIN, HAPPY BIRTHDAY MYA <333
WISH YOU THE BEST <3 HENRYSREID-