Fantasy in Death

20

The partners paced now, wearing a groove in opposite sides of the room. If she’d gone by visual alone, she’d have concluded both were utterly exhausted, holding on by those thin threads of hope, faith, and desperation.

“You should sit down,” she said. She wanted them seated together, where she could watch and gauge faces, hands, bodies.

“Sit,” she repeated, putting enough authority in it to make it an order. “We’ll hear from the medicals soon enough. Meanwhile, you should know we’re making some headway on the investigation. Little steps,” she said quickly, “and I can’t be specific with you. But I wanted to be able to give you some positive news.”

“I don’t care about the investigation, not now.” Benny sat, eyes trained on the doorway. “I can’t think about that. Just about Cill.”

“We just want to keep focused on her. Like-I know it sounds weak, but like pushing energy to her.” Var shrugged. “It feels like something we can do.”

“I think you’re right.” Peabody offered an understanding smile. “I believe in that kind of thing.”

“Free-Ager,” Eve said with the faintest-and very deliberate-tone of dismissal. She moved slightly to the side as a woman in surgical scrubs entered.

She was on the small side, but with broad shoulders. Her hair was as short as Caesar’s and midnight black. Her almond eyes tracked the faces in the room, settled on Eve.

“You’re the officer in charge?”

“Lieutenant Dallas.”

“Doctor Pruit.”

“Please.” Var reached out a hand, dropped it again. “Is she okay? Is Cill okay?”

At Eve’s nod, the doctor sat across from the two men.

“She came through surgery. You’re family?”

“Yes,” Benny said before Var could speak. “We’re her family.”

“Her injuries are very severe.”

“But you fixed her,” Benny insisted.

“We put together a team of doctors and performed several surgeries. She suffered massive trauma to the head, which required extensive repair.”

Eve listened while Pruit explained the damage, the repair, the prognosis, and watched faces. But she’d already seen it-just that quick flash.

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.” Benny looked at Var. “Do you? What does it mean?”

“Cilla’s in a coma,” Pruit explained. “This isn’t unexpected, and it may give her body a chance to heal.”

“Or she won’t wake up at all,” Var said, bitterly. “That’s what you’re saying.”

“Yes. We’ve done everything we can do for her at this time, but we’ll be monitoring her very closely. She survived surgery, and you can take hope from that. But you must be prepared. She remains critical, and should she come out of the coma, there is a possibility of brain damage.”

“God. Oh God.”

“Don’t think about that.” Var closed a hand over Benny’s. “Not yet.”

“You may want to speak to the other surgeons who worked on her. I can give you the basics. Her internal injuries were also severe. One of her kidneys was damaged too critically to save. We replaced her spleen, and can, should she wake and elect it, replace the lost kidney. She will need further surgery on her leg. We were unable to complete repairs without endangering her life.”

Var took a ragged breath. “Are you telling us there’s no hope?”

“There’s always hope. Once she’s settled in ICU, you’ll be able to see her. Very briefly. You can rest assured that we’ll continue to do everything we can for her. She’ll get the very best of care.” Pruit rose. “If you have any more questions, someone will page me. Or you can speak to her other surgeons. Someone will come get you when she’s ready.”

Eve followed Pruit out. “Give me her chances. Straight.”

“Fifty-fifty is generous, but I’d have given her much less when she came into the OR. She has a strong constitution. She’s young, healthy. You had an officer in my OR.”

“That’s right, and I’ll have an officer in her room twenty-four /seven. Not just on the door. In the room. You’re doing all you can to see that she survives. So am I.”

“You’re concerned with security, and another attempt on her life?”

“Not as long as I have an officer in the room.”

“Fair enough. If she makes it through the next twenty-four hours, I’ll consider that fifty-fifty more solid. For now, we’ll go minute by minute.”

“I need to be notified immediately of any change in her condition, one way or the other.”

“I’ll see that ICU has those instructions.”

“I’d like a look at her before you let those two in.”

“All right, go on up. I’ll let them know you’re coming.”

Eve made her way up, noting the ways in and out, the basic security measures, the movements of staff, ID. Decent, she concluded, but there were always ways around security.

She badged the nurse at the desk, pleased when the man didn’t merely glance at it, but gave it a good hard look before passing her through.

As in U-Play, the walls were glass. No privacy for patients, she thought. Cill wouldn’t like it, Eve concluded, but for herself, she liked it just fine. Each room, each patient was monitored by cam and machine. She doubted any of the staff paid much attention to the room screens, but expected they’d hop if any of the monitors signaled a change in patient condition.

Still, she was pleased to see the uniformed officer sitting with his chair angled to the door. He rose when she walked in.

“Take five,” she told him.

“Yes, sir.”

Eve moved to the foot of the bed. They’d caged the leg, the arm, she noted, which made Eve think of a droid in mid-development. The limbs inside the cages showed the livid red and purple of insult and repair. Tubes snaked, hooking Cill to monitors that hummed and beeped in a slow, steady rhythm. The bruising around her eyes showed black against pasty white skin, and the lacework of bandages.

They’d shaved her head, Eve noted, and had it resting on a gel pillow that would ease the pressure. All that hair, Eve mused. That would probably be as much of a jolt as the glass walls and cams.

If she woke up.

“I’ve gotten messed up a few times, but I have to say, you win the prize. Coming back from being put together again’s got to be almost as hard as being busted to pieces. We’ll see how tough you are.”

She walked over to the side of the bed, leaned down. “Don’t you fucking give up. I know who did this to you. I know who killed Bart. I’m going after him, and I’m going to win. Then he’s going to pay. You remember that, and don’t you fucking give up. We’re going to beat him, you by coming back from this, me by taking him down.” She straightened. “He was never your friend. You remember that, too.”

She stood watch until the guard came back.

And when the partners went in to see her, Eve stood watch a little longer, studying them on the monitor.

“Do you think she’ll make it?” Peabody asked when Eve got behind the wheel.

“She’s not the giving-up type. That’s in her favor. Reserve a conference room and set up a briefing with the EDD team. Thirty minutes. No, give me an hour.” Eve used her in-dash ’link while Peabody made arrangements.

“Lieutenant,” Roarke said.

“She’s out of surgery, holding her own.”

“That’s good to hear. You spoke with her surgeon?”

“Yeah. They’re doing what they do. Now we’ll do what we do. Can you meet me in my office in twenty?”

“I can, yes.”

“Bring an open mind.”

He smiled a little. “I always carry it with me.”

“You’ll need it.”

“We’re set,” Peabody told her. “Room B. You’ve got something.” Peabody pointed a finger. “Something new.”

“What I’ve got is a dead guy without a head, a woman in critical with injuries consistent with a fall who was found on a holo-room floor. No weapons, no trace, and no security breaches the aces at EDD can find. Logic it out.”

“The weapons were removed, the killer sealed up. The victims knew and trusted the killer who has supreme e-skills that have so far baffled our e-team. They’ll find the breaches.”

“Assuming they’re there to be found. He miscalculated with Cill. She wasn’t supposed to fall.”

“Fall where?”

“That’s a question, and we may never have the full answer to that one unless she wakes up and tells us. Meanwhile, we think out of the box. Fuck. We burn the damn box.”

She pulled into the garage at Central. “Set up everything we have, including the scans and data we got from the hospital.”

“Okay, but-”

“Less talk, more work.”

Eve double-timed it to her office and began to put her briefing together. She scowled at her computer and wished for better e-skills. She wanted to have at least the bones together before Roarke got there.

“Okay, you bastard, let’s give this a try.” She sat, and using the medical data began to build a reenactment.

Marginally pleased, she nodded at the screen as Roarke came in.

“Do you want the good news or the bad?” he asked her.

“Give me the bad. I like to end on an up note.”

“We’ve scanned, dug, taken apart, and put back together Cill’s security system, and used every test, idea, method known to man and machine going back over Bart’s. We can’t find a single abnormality. I’d stake my reputation, and yours for that matter, that no one entered those apartments after the victim secured the door.”

“Good.”

Irritation rippled over his wonderful face. “Well, I’m delighted you’re pleased and we’ve lost countless brain cells on this.”

“Fact: No one entered the scene after the victim. Facts are good. What’s the rest?”

“We’ve made some progress on reconstructing the disc from Bart’s holo-room. It’s one painful nanochip at a time, but there’s some progress.”

“Even better.”

“Aren’t you the cheery one?” He stepped to the AutoChef, programmed coffee.

“I know who did it, and I have an idea how.”

“All right, let’s start with who.”

“Var.”

“Well, that’s a fifty-fifty for most, but you being you, the odds are higher.”

“It’s nice to be so easily believed.”

He waved that off. “You wouldn’t say it so definitely unless you were bloody damn sure. So, it’s Var. Because?”

“He’s the odd man out. The other three go back to childhood. He comes along later in the game-you have to play catch-up. I bet he never liked playing catch-up. But he doesn’t hook in with the already established group until college. Before that, if you look at his records, he was the best-by far-in his electronics, math, science, comp, theory classes. Nobody came close.”

“Used to being the star-the champion, you could say.”

Eve nodded. “Yeah, you could. Then, in college, he hooks up with the other three. Not only are they as good as he is, Bart’s better. And he’s popular. In a geeky kind of way. Supreme Wizard of the Gaming Club. Where do they come up with titles like that? TA for a couple of classes, dorm manager. Responsible guy, cheerful guy. Brilliant, skilled, and people tended to like him.”

Roarke settled in the visitor’s chair with his coffee. “And that’s your motive?”

“It’s the root. Who did you approach when you considered recruiting that group?”

“Bart. Yes. He was de facto leader, even then. Go on.”

“And he turned you down, wanted to build his own company. His initial concept from all the statements, the data, the time lines. Equal partnership, sure, but Bart was the head, and the public face.”

“True enough, but you could say both Cill and Benny had been competing with him even longer. Benny, for instance, always the sidekick.”

“Yeah, I considered that. I had a moment in his apartment during the search with the droid. The Dark Knight connection.”

Roarke lowered the coffee, obviously baffled. “What would Batman have to do with it?”

“How do you know that?” Baffled, she tossed up her hands. “How do I say ‘Dark Knight’ and you immediately click to Batman. How do you know this stuff?”

“The question might be how do you not know. Batman’s been part of the popular culture lexicon for more than a century.”

“Never mind. It’s just weird. I could…” She narrowed her eyes. “Who murdered sixteen male prostitutes between the ages of eighteen and twenty-three over a three-year period and fed their remains to his prizewinning hogs?”

“Christ Jesus.” Despite the image, Roarke had to laugh. “I’m delighted to say I have no idea.”

“Hanson J. Flick, 2012- 2015.” She smirked. “You don’t know everything.”

“And your particular area of expertise is occasionally revolting.”

“Yet handy. In any case, Benny’s stuck on Cill, which could have been a motive on Bart, except there’s zero going on there in the screwing around department. And Benny’s happy with his place in the company. He likes his research. Cill’s apartment was a mess-a kind of organized mess. Benny’s was lived-in, and he’s got Mongo and Alfred for company when he wants them. It’s probably healthy in some weird way.”

“Mongo?”

“A parrot. It talks. A lot, I’m betting. And you didn’t ask who Alfred was.”

“You said Benny, Dark Knight, so Alfred’s the butler.”

To that Eve could only heave out a breath. “Okay. Benny’s place. There were signs of grieving and… simplicity,” she decided. “Var’s place was clean. Like he was expecting company. He knew we’d need to do a search-he’d anticipated the steps in the game, and he was ready for it. He stocks good wine, fancier food, spends more on clothes and furniture. He opened the door for the cops at Cill’s.”

“And that… ah. Benny was alone with her. He could have finished her easily. Simply closed off her airway. It wouldn’t have taken much, wouldn’t have taken long.”

“He got to her first, and stayed with her. Var couldn’t do anything about it. He expected to find her dead. It had to be a shock when Benny found a pulse, but he thinks on his feet-and he had to hope, to believe, she’d never make it through surgery. It surprised him, and pissed him off when she did. It showed, just for a second. He’s good, a good actor. Most sociopaths are, and all that role-playing’s worked for him over the years.”

“And you believe he played the role of friend and partner, all these years.”

“It may have even been true, as far as it goes, off and on. The business is successful, he’s making a good living with potential for more. It’ll be the more that pushed him, or gave him the excuse he wanted. And the fact Bart could and did overrule him. He’s already edging himself into a leadership role at U-Play. Taking Cill out just cements it. Benny doesn’t want to run that show. He wants to keep doing what he’s doing, so he’s not a threat but an asset. Cill could run it, and Benny would side with her. Remove her, and the field’s clear.”

“All right, say I’m convinced you’re right. How? I’ll agree he could easily have arranged to go in with Bart, it’s trickier with Cill as Benny claims he watched her go in, and Var walked on.

I suppose he could have circled around, entered another way, intercepted her before she went in the apartment, but-”

“He was never in either apartment, not at the time of the murder or the attack.”

“Well then, how did he manage it? By remote control?”

“In a way. Okay, engaging that open mind you carry around with you, the hologram did it.”

“Eve, even a flaw in the system-which we haven’t found, couldn’t decapitate a player.”

“Not the system. The hologram. Bart fought the Black Knight, and the Black Knight won. It cut off Bart’s head, and in whatever scenario Cill played, it pushed her, or caused her to fall.”

Roarke took another sip of coffee. “Let me understand you. You’re suggesting that a holographic image, which is essentially light and shadow, attempted murder and committed it.”

“But it’s not just light and shadows. Neuro- and nanotech have advanced, and the images produced in holo-programs act and react, according to that program. They appear three-dimensional, appear to have substance. The player’s senses are involved and engaged.”

“It’s an illusion.”

“Right. But with clarity. And, some hold the theory that the wave front could be enhanced further, and the beams increased in power, and remarried to complex VR-”

“Results in burnout and system failure,” he finished. “You simply can’t create actual substance in holo. It’s replicated imagery.”

“You wouldn’t have to. But if you found a way to get around the system failure and increase those beams, the enhanced wave front, to channel that increase, you might also increase the power stream of that light. A kind of current that, okay, not actual substance, but an electronic replication of that substance. A kind of laser.”

“It’s… hmm.” He set the coffee aside, rose to go over and edge a hip onto her desk. “Interesting.”

“The jolts you get in the game. Tied in to that illusion of contact in, say, a sword fight with the Black Knight. But, if you’ve found a way to do this enhancement, to take a jump on the tech trampoline, the sword could, conceivably, cut, slash, sever. Or the current could-in the shape of the holo it’s programmed to produce. Or in Cill’s case, replicate an impact where those currents, or whatever the hell you’d call them, could inflict the same damage as what they’d been programmed to replicate.”

When he said nothing, she shifted. “Listen, laser scalpels cut. Laser blasters, well, blast. Why can’t light imagery-essentially-be manipulated to slice and bash?”

“It would run hot-should run hot enough to shut down the system. To fry it for that matter. But…”

“How come all your hotshot R &D people aren’t all over this?”

“Oh, we have some toying with it. But the fact is, on a practical level it’s not marketable. You can hardly produce games where the players can go around chopping pieces off each other, or other mayhem. You’d be shut down, and sued within an inch.”

Her eyes narrowed. “Then why do you have anyone toying?” And he gave her an easy smile. “You never know what you might find when you’re looking for something else, do you? And under certain circumstances, such an application might interest the military. In any case, it’s low priority. Or was,” he corrected. “And this would explain-”

“A lot. I’ve eliminated everything else. This is what’s left. And when you’ve eliminated everything else, what’s left should be true.”

“Yes,” Roarke murmured. “It certainly should. There’s nothing on this technology on any record or comp at U-Play, or on the partners’ equipment. He’ll have that private space you’re looking for. He’d have to.”

“And he’ll take the bait there. He’ll have to. We’ll find it, and when we do, I think we’re going to find a lot more than a game.” She checked her wrist unit. “Shit. I spent more time laying it out for you than I should have. I need you to program a reenactment of both events, using this theory, so I can use it in the briefing.”

“Oh well, then, no problem at all. I can just take that jump on the tech trampoline in the next ten minutes, then take my bows.”

“Sarcasm noted. Look, I’ve got it started. It just needs to be refined some.”

“It’s not like twisting the top off a tube of bloody ketchup after you’ve loosened it.”

“Too much for you?” She cocked her head. “No problem. I’ll get McNab on it.”

“That’s bitchy. On here?”

“Yeah, I’ve just about got-”

“Go away.” He sat, then glanced back at her scowling face. “Now.”

“Fine. But don’t spend the next century fiddling with it. I just need it clear enough to-”

“Close the door behind you, whether or not it hits you in the ass.”

“No need to get pissy,” she muttered, and closed the door behind her with a sharp snap.

Since she’d forgotten to get coffee before being kicked out of her own damn office, she stopped and snarled at Vending. Machine and technology, not her friends in the best of times, were currently on her short list. She fingered the loose credits in her pockets and considered her options.

“Hey, Dallas.” McNab bounced up. “Great minds.” He punched in his code, ordered up a Tango Fizzy-tangerine and mango, Eve thought as her stomach curdled. “Here, get me a Pepsi.” She shoved credits at him.

“No prob.”

“Any activity on the scan?”

“Not yet. We brought a portable down so I can keep my eye on it while we brief. Anybody takes a stab at hacking in, I’ll know it. Here you go.” He tossed her the tube. “Peabody says Cill Allen’s hanging in so far. Hope she makes it, but I gotta say, I hate she might pop up and say, ‘Hey, it was Colonel Mustard in the library with the candlestick’ and make it easy after we put this much time in.”

“Who the hell is Colonel Mustard?”

“You know, from the game. Clue. You should play it. You’d kill.”

“I’ve had about enough of games that kill.” She considered him as she cracked the tube. He was young, and as into gaming as anyone she knew. Plus, being a cop, violence was part of his life. “Would you want that? Want to play games where the stakes were real?”

“You mean where I could win a zillion dollars? Oh shit, yeah.”

“No. Well, okay, say there’s a big cash prize.” Because if this thing ever went public, somebody would figure a way to gamble on it. “But to win, even qualify, you had to face off against opponents with real weapons. Real blood, real pain-and potentially fatal.”

“So I risk getting my ass kicked, maimed, or dead for money and/or glory? I do that anyway.” He smiled, shrugged. “Why would I want to do it for game? Gaming’s how you get away from the real for a while.”

“Yeah. You’re not as stupid as you look.”

“Thanks.” He lifted his fizzy as she walked away, then clicked in. “Hey!”

She strode into the conference room, nodded as the efficient Peabody finished the setup. She gestured toward the components and screens. “That’s the monitor on the dummy files?”

“Yeah. If anyone tries to hack in, access the case files, read, scan copy, infect, EDD will know and trace. I’m keeping my eye on it for a minute while McNab grabs some fluids. The others are on their way.”

“Roarke might be late. He’s working on something for me.”

“Wouldn’t mind him working on something for me.”

“Excuse me?”

“Hmm? Oh, just talking to myself,” Peabody sang. “You know how it is.”

Eve strolled over, clipped the back of Peabody’s head with the flat of her hand.

“Ow.”

“Oh, sorry, just an involuntary reflex. You know how it is.” She shifted Var’s ID photo from the group on the murder board and set it dead center.

“Him?”

“Him.”

“Good. I just won a fifty-dollar bet with myself.”

“First, how do you win a bet with yourself?”

“See, I bet myself fifty it was Var. I win, so I put it in my investment kitty. When I get a decent chunk in the kitty, Roarke’s going to invest it for me.”

“What if you’d lost?”

“Then I’d put it in the investment kitty, but it’s more satisfying to win.”

“Okay. Why’d you bet for-against-forget that. Why Var?”

“A couple things. His apartment was perfect, both times a team went in. Okay, a lot of people are neat freaks, but he’d be the first serious gamer I know who doesn’t have a few stray discs sitting around, or some crumbs where he grabbed a snack while he was playing. And he said he’d been playing the night Cill was attacked. Maybe I just didn’t want it to be Benny because he really loves her, and if I was wrong about that, it’d be depressing. Who wants to be depressed?”

“Poets,” Eve decided. “You have to think they must.”

“Okay, other than poets. Plus, Benny strikes me as more of a follower. You have to be a self-starter to pull this off. I think. So if it came down between the two of them, I bet on Var.”

“I may need a tissue, my pride waters me right up.”

She looked over as the EDD team came in. “All right. Let’s get started. Roarke’s working on something for me, so we won’t wait for him. I’ve already briefed him.”

She called the first images on-screen while the team settled. “Victim One, Minnock, Bart, decapitated while engaged in play of Fantastical in his holo-room, secured, in his apartment, also secured. Thus far we’ve found nothing to indicate another entry, invited or forced.”

“Nothing to find,” Feeney stated. “We have to conclude the killer came in with him, and there’s some malfunction with the droid. We’re going to take her apart again.”

“Maybe not.” Eve left it at that until she finished laying the groundwork. “The victim engaged in solo play for just over thirty minutes, starting at level four. We’ve concluded he gamed K2BK, which through process of elimination would be Usurper. We’ll come back to the details of that scenario.

“Victim Two,” she continued, “Allen, Cilla, attacked and critically injured while engaged in play of the same game, in her holo-room, unsecured, in her apartment, which was secured. No indications of another entry, invited or forced until her partners, Leman and Hoyt, entered this morning and discovered her on the holo-room floor. After questioning, her partners state her preferred game is Dragon’s Egg-a treasure hunt. We’ll go into those details shortly.”

She glanced at her wrist unit. If Roarke ever finished.

“Victim Two began at level one, engaged in play for just over two hours. We have her just shy of completing level three. Expert medical opinion based on her injuries, the scans, concludes she suffered those injuries in a fall from perhaps twenty feet onto a hard, rough, and uneven surface.”

“Can’t be,” Feeney disagreed. Absently, he took a cube of gum McNab offered him. “Screws the time line and the entry, and hell, the physical evidence on-scene. The attack went down in the holo-room.”

“I agree.” Eve stepped to the side of the wall screen to give the team an unobstructed view of the crime scene record. “So how does a woman incur injuries from a fall such as I’ve described on the smooth, flat surface of her holo-room? How does a man get his head cut off when all evidence concludes he was alone? The only logical explanation is Bart was killed and Cill attacked by their opponent in the game.”

“If they were alone, Dallas, they didn’t have a damn opponent.”

Eve shifted her glance toward Feeney. “But they did. Each would have to defeat or outwit that opponent to reach the next level. For Bart, the Black Knight. For Cill, the rival treasure hunter.”

“You’re saying some holo jumped out of a game and sliced off the vic’s head?” Feeney shook his own. “You’ve been working too hard, kid.”

“I’m saying the killer used the game,” Eve corrected. “I’m saying he used a new technology programmed into the game as the weapon. Enhanced wave fronts, increased power to beams and the haptic system, a refocus of laser angles and light, forming electrons and light source in the shape of the programmed images-replicating substance.”

Callendar tilted her head. “Wicked. Wicked freaky.”