Fantasy in Death

21

“That’s science fiction shit.”

“It’s fiction until science catches up.” Eve rocked back on her heels. “Feeney, you work with science every day. Go back to your rookie days and compare them with now. This isn’t my area, so maybe it’s easier for me to consider the possibility. Nothing else fits. And this? Figuring the evidence, the time lines, the circumstances, the personalities, and the areas of interest? It fits like a fucking glove.”

“There’s always some rumbling and mumbling on the underground sites,” McNab commented. His eyes shone bright with the possibilities-what Eve thought of as a geek beam. “Way-out theories and applications.”

“We got sightings of Bigfoot and little green men on-sites, too,” Feeney countered, but he was frowning in a way that made Eve sure he was considering.

“Both vics had minute burns, internal burns, at the site of injuries. We’ve gone around chasing some charged-up sword. I think we weren’t far off. But it only exists within the program.

I believe Levar Hoyt killed one partner and attempted to kill another through his programming. Let’s take him for a minute.”

She shifted gears, back to the comfortable, and outlined her reasons and conclusions on the suspect.

“He looks good for it,” Feeney agreed. “You’ve got a nice pile of circumstantial. But say I came over to this idea of yours, how the hell do we prove it?”

“He’s going to tell me. He’s going to want to tell me.” She paused as Roarke walked in. “Got it?”

“It’s rough considering I was pressed for time-and your equipment is hardly cutting-edge-but I have it, yes.”

“Load it up. Display on screen two. What we’re going to see are reconstructions of the crimes, using the available data, images, medical findings, and applying the theory. The running time’s bottom right. For both, we’ve utilized the victims’ game pattern from records of their sessions.”

She watched as Roarke set the program, displayed it on-screen. “Bart Minnock enters his apartment,” she continued as the computerized images moved over the screen. “Interacts with the droid. He drinks the fizzy she serves him, orders her to shut down for the night. He leaves the glass on the table, goes to the third floor, and enters the holo-room, secures it.”

She watched it play out, keeping an eye on the elapsed time. It fit, she thought again. The image moved through the steps, the pattern previously established. Maybe he’d done something different this time, but it didn’t matter. He’d ended up, as he did now, facing off with the figure of the Black Knight.

Swords clashed, horses reared, smoke plumed. Then the tip of the blade scored Bart’s arm, and the knight followed through with the coup de grace.

“You’ll note the positions, the height, reach of the victim and the holo-image, the blow result in the exact positioning of the victim, head and body, as we have on record at the time of discovery. For the second victim, we’ll move straight to level three.”

“I put considerable time into the lead up,” Roarke complained.

“Which is appreciated, and will be of interest to the PA’s office. But for now, let’s save time. Her character’s after this artifact, and up against obstacles, puzzles, and opponents. She needs to reach the top of this rise, gain entrance to a cave in order to complete the level. Note the path is muddy.”

Arrows flew. Cill’s image dodged, weaved, slipped, scrambled up. Then came face-to-face with her opponent.

“The time line, considering her average pace and movements, indicates she found the holo-image here, on the muddy path, leading up the rise to the cave, with the cliff dropping on to the rocks and water at her right. There! Pause program.”

The images froze as the knife sliced Cill’s arm.

“She sustained this injury-one Morris states was the result of insult with a smooth, sharp object. Knife or sword. Resume program. She’s shocked, hurt, and off balance on the slippery path, falls before her opponent can follow through. Or, he gives her a nice shove. She hits the rocks, and is knocked unconscious. Game over. Since she loses consciousness, the program no longer reads her, and ends.”

She turned away from the screen. “Meanwhile the son of a bitch who arranged it is sitting at home with his fucking feet up entertaining himself, establishing his alibi, probably practicing his shock and grief. He eliminates two of his partners-two of his obstacles-and never gets his hands bloody.”

Feeney scratched his chin. “I’ll give you the timing works, and I’m not going to argue with Morris if he says that girl fell. But if this bastard figured out how to manipulate holo to this level, I’d sure like a look inside his head. Running that hot, hot enough to do this should’ve toasted the system.”

“Maybe not the first time,” Roarke put in. “He may have found a way to shield it. I don’t think a standard system would hold up to multiple plays.”

“He only needed one,” Eve pointed out.

“That’s what’s so screwy about the disc, the one we’ve been working to reconstruct.” McNab shifted to Callendar. “The high intensity of focused light, the concentration of nanos.”

“Cloak that in tri-gees to keep the system from snapping.”

“I’d use bluetone.”

“That’d gunk it inside of six UPH.”

“Not if you layered it with a wave filter.” Feeney joined in, and Eve turned back to her board as the geek team argued and theorized.

Peabody came over to join her. “I speak some basic geek, but I don’t understand a word they’re saying. I guess I’ll go back to Callendar’s first comment. It’s wicked freaky.”

“It’s science. People have been using science to kill since some cave guy set some other poor bastard’s hair on fire.”

She turned again, studied Cill’s broken body on the holo-room floor.

“The underlying’s the same, but sometimes the methods get fancier. He’s a cold, egotistical son of a bitch. He used friendship, partnership, trust, relationships, and affection built over years to kill a man who would never have done him any harm. He put another friend into the hospital where one more friend has to suffer, has to watch her fight to live. And he’s enjoyed every minute of it. Every minute of being the focus of our attention, absolutely confident in his ability to beat us. And that’s how we’ll bring him down. Hang him with his own ego, his need to win.”

She glanced over as the monitor began to beep.

“McNab!” The snap in her voice cut McNab off in the middle of a passionate argument over hard versus soft light.

“Sir.”

She jabbed a finger at the equipment. He sprang up, rushed over. “We got a breach on the outer layer. He’s testing it.”

“Track the signal.”

“Working on it. He’s got shields up, and feelers out. See that? See that?”

Eve saw a bunch of lights and lines.

“Two can play,” McNab muttered.

“Three.” Callendar put on a headset, began to snap her fingers, shift her hips. “He bounced.”

“Yeah yeah, he’s careful. There, that’s… No, no, that’s a fish.”

“I’ll run a line on it anyway. Maybe he’ll wiggle it back.”

“Try a lateral, Ian,” Roarke suggested. “Then go under. He’s just skimming now.”

“Let that fish swim,” Feeney told Callendar. “It’s not… There, see, there, he’s sent out a ghost. Go hunting.”

Eve paced away, circled, paced back as for the next twenty minutes the e-team followed squiggles and wiggles, flashes and bursts.

“He’s nipped through the next layer,” Roarke pointed out. “He’s taking his time about it.”

“Maybe we made it too easy for him.” Feeney puffed out his cheeks. “We’re scaring him off.”

“I don’t care how many layers he gets through. What he’s going to find is bogus anyway. I want his location.”

McNab glanced back at Eve. “He’s a pogo stick on Zeus, Dallas. He’s bouncing, then switching off, banking back. The bastard’s good.”

“Better than you?”

“I didn’t say that. We’ve got echoes, we’ve got cross and junctions, so he’s in New York. Probably.”

“I know he’s in New York.”

“I’m verifying it,” he said, testy now.

Roarke laid a hand on McNab’s shoulder. “I doubt you want chapter and verse here, Lieutenant. But imagine you were in a foot chase with a suspect who could, at any given time, pop ten blocks over, or take a jump to London, zip over to the Ukraine, then land again a block behind you. It might take you some time to catch the bloody bastard.”

“Okay, all right. How much time?”

“If he keeps at this pace, and we’re able to track those echoes, extrapolate the junctions, it shouldn’t take more than a couple hours. Maybe three.”

She didn’t curse. Var might have been bouncing all over hell and back in cyberspace, but as long as they had him on the monitor, he was in one place in reality.

“Can you run one of these at home?” she asked Roarke.

“I can, yes.”

“Do you have any problems with that?”

Feeney gave her an absent wave. “A secondary setup at another source might help flank the bastard.”

“Okay then, I’m going to work from home. In the quiet. I need to put this all down in a way that Whitney doesn’t have me committed when I report to him tomorrow. You can save me a lot of trouble by locating the murdering fuckhead.”

“If he keeps up the hack, we’ll have him. Yeah, yeah, he’s in New York. See there. Now let’s start scraping away sectors.”

“I’ll hang here,” Peabody said. “Keep them supplied with liquids.”

“Be ready for a go tonight.” Eve looked back at the team. It came down to trust again. If they said they’d pin him, they’d pin him.

“Maybe I should just take it to my office,” Eve considered as they headed out.

“Feeney’s right about the value of a secondary source. I can do more at home, and I have better equipment. Added to that, I’d like my hands in it, and here I’d just step on Ian’s toes.”

“All right. Set up at home, and I’ll spend the next hour or two trying to find a way to write a report that doesn’t make me sound like a lunatic.”

“You came off quite sane when you ran it by me, and then the rest. Push the science. I’ll help you with it,” he added when she didn’t quite muffle the groan. “We’ll dazzle the commander with your in-depth knowledge of advance holonetics.”

“I feel a headache coming on.”

He brushed his lips over the top of her head as they stepped into the garage. “There now.”

“One way or the other, he’s in the box with me tomorrow. My turf, my area. And then we’ll see who… Shit, shit, could it be that simple?”

“Could what?”

“Turf. Area.” Shit! she thought again and pulled up short. “I have to figure he’s got his hole within the basic parameters of his place, the partners, the warehouse. He’s efficient, careful, meticulous. Why would he risk being seen-and maybe even by his so-called friends-going in or out of another building?”

Roarke uncoded the doors, pulled hers open, then leaned on it. “His own building. He’d want his special equipment close, wouldn’t he? Easier to secure, to monitor that security, to use whenever he has the whim.”

“Not his apartment. There’s nothing in there. But there are other spaces in that building. Including the other half of his floor.”

“Let’s go have a look.”

“My thoughts exactly. I’ll run the address while you drive, see who rents or owns it.”

He got behind the wheel. “Backup?”

“I’ll let them know we’re taking the detour, but I don’t want to call out the troops then have this turn out to be a bust. Anyway, I think we can handle a cybergeek who kills by remote control. He’s a coward on top of… Stuben, Harry and Tilda, ages eighty-six and eighty-five respectively. Owners, in residence for eighteen years. Three children, five grandchildren, two great-grandchildren.”

“It could be a blind.”

“Yeah.” She drummed her fingers on her thigh. “There was good security on that apartment. Two doors, both with monitors, cams, palm plates. The inside setup is probably a mirror image of Var’s. It’s worth a knock. I’ll run the other units. Maybe something will pop, but this one feels right.”

When he parked, she pulled out her communicator. “Peabody, we’re going to take a look at Var’s across-the-hall neighbors. Following a hunch.”

“Do you want me to meet you?”

“No. We’ll take our look-see. If I don’t tag you back in fifteen, send backup.”

“Copy that. Across the hall from his own place. That would be smart, now that I think of it. Dallas, why don’t you just leave the com open? I can monitor, and if I hear any trouble, I’ll release the hounds.”

“All right. While you’re babysitting us, go ahead and run the other occupants of the building. And put your com on mute. I don’t want to hear your voice coming out of my ass.” She stuck the communicator in her back pocket as Roarke chuckled.

“Let’s make this official. Record on. Dallas, Lieutenant Eve, and Roarke, expert consultant, civilian, entering Var Hoyt’s building to interview suspect’s neighbor.”

She used her master to gain entry.

“You know, if I were him, I’d have the outer security rigged to alert me if anyone bypassed the normal entry procedure.”

“Maybe. Still, he’d have to scramble to shut down operations in one space, secure it, get across the hall, unlock, get in, resecure. And when I push for another warrant, the security logs will show exactly that if so. Or we could just be interrupting an old couple’s quiet evening.”

“Maybe they’re out doing the tango and drinking tequila shots.” He sent Eve a grin. “As we will be when we reach their age. After which we’ll come home and have mad sex.”

“For God’s sake. This is on the record.”

“Yes, I know.” He stepped off with her on Var’s floor. “I wanted those future plans to be official as well.”

She aimed a smoldering look before stopping outside the entrance to the apartment across from Var’s. “He’s locked up over there. Full red. Here, too,” she noted.

She knocked, waited, with a hand resting on the butt of her weapon. She poised to knock again when the speaker clicked.

“Hello?”

The voice was female and a bit wary.

“Mrs. Stuben?”

“That’s right. Who are you?”

“Lieutenant Dallas, NYPSD.” She held up her badge so the camera could see it. “We’d like to speak with you.”

“Is there a problem? Is there something wrong? Oh my goodness! Is it one of the kids?”

“No, ma’am,” Eve began even as the locks opened, and the security went to green. “No, ma’am,” she repeated when the door opened. “This is just a routine inquiry related to an ongoing investigation.”

“An investigation?” The woman was small and slim in lounging pants and a flowered shirt. Her hair, tidy and ashy blond rode on her head like a helmet. “Harry! Harry! The police are at the door. I guess you should come in.”

She stepped back, revealing a large, comfortable living area, crowded with dust catchers and photographs. The air smelled of lavender.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be rude. I’m just so flustered.” She patted a hand to her heart. “You can come right in, sit down. I was about to make some tea for Harry and me. A nice pot of tea while we watch our shows. Harry!” she called again, then sighed. “He’s got that screen on so loud he can’t hear me. I’m going to go get him. You just sit right down, and I’ll go get Harry.”

“Mrs. Stuben, do you know your neighbor across the hall? Levar Hoyt?”

“Var? Sure we do. Such a nice young man,” she said as she started up the stairs. “Smart as they come. We couldn’t ask for a better neighbor. Harry!”

“Tea and flowers,” Eve murmured, “everything’s just so homey.”

“Which, of course, automatically raises your suspicions. Still, some people…” He stopped in his turn around the room. “Eve,” he said, just as the locks on the door snapped shut, and the room shimmered away.

“It’s a goddamn holo.” Eve reached for her weapon, and drew a sword. “Oh, fuck me!”

“We’ll have to wait on that. To your left.”

She barely had time to pivot, to block before the blade sliced down. She looked into a scarred face mottled with tattoos. It grinned while twin red suns turned the sky to the color of blood.

She came up with her left elbow, rammed him in the throat. When he stumbled back she took a fraction of a second to glance toward Roarke. He fought a bare-chested mountain of a man armed with sword and dagger. Beyond him, in the blue observer’s circle, stood Var.

Frightened, she thought as she met the next thrust. Scared, desperate, but excited, too.

“They’ll come looking for us, Var!” she shouted. “Stop the game.”

“It’s got to play out.”

She felt the boggy ground under her feet, and part of her mind registered the heavy, wet heat, the scream of birds, the wildly improbable green of thick trees. Swords crashed, deadly cymbals, as she fought for any advantage.

To play the game, she thought, you had to know the rules. “What the hell are we fighting about?” she demanded. She leaped when her opponent swung the sword at her knees, then struck back at his sword arm. “We’ve got no beef with you.”

“You invade our world, enslave us. We will fight you to the last breath.”

“I don’t want your damn world.” She saved her breath, spun away from his sword, and reared up in a kick that caught him in the side. When she followed through to finish him, he feinted, fooled her, and ran a line of pain down her hip with the tip of his sword.

She leaped back. “I’m a New York City cop, you son of a bitch. And I’m going to kick your ass.”

Riding on fury, she came in hard, her sword flying right, left, slashing through his guard to rip his side. She pushed in, slamming her fist in his face. Blood erupted from his nose.

“That’s how we do it in New York!”

Rage burned in his eyes. He let out a war cry, charged in. She rammed her sword into his belly, to the hilt, yanking it free as he fell, then whirling toward Roarke.

Blood stained the black body armor he wore and smeared the gleaming chest of his opponent. Beside them a river raged in eerie, murky red while enormous tri-winged birds swooped.

As she ran toward him, she took the drumbeats she heard for her racing heart.

“I’ve got this,” he snapped out.

“Oh, for Christ’s sake.” She swung her sword up, but before she could land the blow, Roarke sliced his across his opponent’s throat.

“I said I had it.”

“Great. Points for you. Now-”

She turned with every intention of rushing Var and holding the point of the sword to his throat. Another warrior leaped into her path, then another, and more.

Men, women, tattooed, armed. And as the drumbeat came from the bones more of them rapped rhythmically on the trees.

“We can’t take them all,” Eve murmured as she and Roarke moved instinctively to guard each other’s backs.

“No.” He reached back, took her free hand in his, squeezed. “But we can give them a hell of a fight.”

“We can hold them off.” She circled with them as the first group moved in slowly. “Hold them off until the backup gets here. If you can get to the controls-if you can find the damn controls, can you end it?”

“Possibly. If you could get through to that little bastard over there.”

“Solid line between us and him. A goddamn sword’s not enough to… Wait a minute, wait a damn minute.”

It wasn’t real, she thought. Deadly, murderous, but still not real. But her weapon was. She couldn’t see it, couldn’t feel it through the program, but it was there.

Muscle memory, habit, ingrained instinct. She shifted her sword to her left hand, drew a breath. She slapped her hand to her side, and her hand remembered. The shape, the feel, the weight.

She fired, and watched the warrior struck by the beam fall.

She fired again, again, scattering the field.

“Clutch piece. Right ankle. Can you get it?”

“No time.” Roarke whirled to strike at the man who came at her left. “Hit the controls. Blast the bloody controls.”

“Where the hell are they?”

She took out another before he landed his sword on Roarke’s unguarded side.

“Right side of the door!” he shouted, grabbing a second sword from a fallen warrior. “About five feet up.”

“Where’s the fucking door?” She sent out streams, shooting wild and blind. Those unearthly green trees fired and smoked, screams ripped the air while she struggled to orient herself.

They just kept coming, she realized as she fired again and again in a desperate attempt to keep the charging warriors off Roarke.

Var had rigged the game, programmed it for only one outcome.

“Well, fuck that!”

Across the damn river, she thought, and east. She concentrated her fire. Five feet up, she thought again, and plowed a stream in a wide swath at five feet.

She caught movement out of the corner of her eye, started to pivot, to lift her left arm and the sword as she continued to fire with her right.

Roarke struck in between her and the oncoming warrior, knocking the sword clear of her.

She watched in shock and horror as the dagger in the warrior’s other hand slid into Roarke’s side.

In the same instant tongues of flames spurted with a harsh electric crackle and snap. The images shimmered away. She grabbed Roarke, taking his weight when he swayed. “Hold on. Hold on.”

“You cheated.” Var stood, stunned outrage on his face, in a room filling with smoke. He made a run for the door.

Eve didn’t spare him a word, simply dropped him.

As Var’s body jolted and jittered, she eased Roarke to the floor.

“Let me see. Let me see.”

“Not that bad.” He took a labored breath, reached up. “You took a few hits yourself.”

“Be quiet.” She ripped open his already ruined shirt, shoved his jacket aside. “Why do you always wear so many clothes?”

She didn’t know she was weeping, he thought, his cop, his cool-headed warrior. When she shed her own jacket, ruthlessly ripped off the sleeve, he winced. “That was a nice one, once.”

She folded the sleeve, pressed the cushion of material to the wound in his side.

“It’s not bad.” Well, he hoped to Christ it wasn’t, and concentrated on her face. Eve’s face. Just Eve. “Hurts like the bloody fires of hell, but it’s not that bad. I’ve been stabbed before.”

“Shut up, just shut up.” She yanked out her communicator. “Officer needs assistance. Officer down. Officer down.”

“I’m an officer now, am I? That’s insult to injury.” As she shouted out the address, he turned his head at the violent thumping at the door. “Ah, well, there’s the backup. Wipe your face, baby. You’d hate them to see the tears.”

“Screw that.” But she swiped the back of one bloody hand over her cheeks. She pressed his hand to the makeshift bandage. “Hold that?

Can you hold that?” She ripped off the second sleeve. “You’re not leaving me.”

“Darling Eve. I’m not going anywhere.” Her face, he thought again as the pain seared up his side. “I had worse than this when I was twelve.”

She added the second pad, laid her hand over his. “You’re okay. You’re going to be okay.”

“That’s what I’m telling you,” he said as the door burst open. The entry team came in loaded, with Peabody behind them.

“Get a medic!” Eve demanded. “Get a damn medic in here. We’re clear. We’re clear.”

“Sweep the place,” Peabody ordered. “Secure that asshole.” She dropped to her knees beside Eve. “MT’s on the way. How bad?” She reached out, stroked Roarke’s hair back from his face.

“Stabbed him in the side. He’s lost blood. I think we’ve slowed it down, but-”

“Let’s have a look.” Feeney crouched down. “Ease back, Dallas. Come on now, kid, ease back.” Feeney elbowed her aside, gently lifted the field dressing. “That’s a good hole you’ve got there.” He looked into Roarke’s eyes. “I expect you’ve had worse.”

“I have. She’s some of her own.”

“We’ll take care of it.”

“It’s clear.” McNab shot his weapon away, knelt down beside Peabody. “How you doing?” he asked Roarke.

“Been better, but, hell, we won.”

“That’s what counts. Callendar’s grabbing towels out of the bathroom. We’ll fix you up.”

“No doubt.” As he started to sit up, Eve shoved in again.

“Don’t move. You’ll start up the bleeding again. Wait-”

“Now you shut up,” he suggested, and tugged her to him, pressed his lips firmly to hers.