He went to Dr. Lahiri next. He rolled her on her side, so that only part of her wound was visible. Then he dragged her a little closer to her daughter’s corpse. He bent Dr. Lahiri’s feet behind her back in an unconscious—or was it conscious?—imitation of the position the Judge had landed in.
One foot fell against Carolyn’s hair. The man reached for it, then stopped himself. He smiled, as if he liked the serendipity, then he tucked the doctor’s hands together and stepped away.
Once more he studied the corpses. Finally he grabbed the judge’s legs and straightened them. The man spread them slightly—as if the judge had fallen from a standing position—and flung the Judge’s hands back.
The bodies flopped easily; it was too soon for rigor to take effect. The mess on the floor was another matter. At that moment, all of the man’s actions were visible—the bloody drag marks, the drips from the wall, the way the blood had pooled in Dr. Lahiri’s back.
Flint bit his lower lip, wondering what this man was about. He continued to watch, stunned, as the man finished staging the death scene. He rolled Carolyn’s body to the right, set the gun beneath it, and rolled her back as if she had fallen on the weapon.
Then he reset all the bots, giving them verbal directions about cleaning specific areas. They took care of the drag marks and the long stain down the wall, the drips, and his footprints.
They even cleaned his shoes and clothing.
The scene looked almost like the image Flint had on the other computers, except for one thing. The walls were mostly clean. Only the wall that had been behind Carolyn when she had been shot was covered with blood and brains, and that wall, according to Flint’s notes, hadn’t had a bit of trace on it.
The killer had used most of the time remaining to clean up the room. He moved toward the security panel—recessed behind one of the pictures, and opened it.
Then he paused as if he had gotten an idea. He turned his back to the camera. His hands moved, however. He was obviously speaking again.
The bots that had done the cleaning spread around the room. They spewed the trace at the furniture, the walls, the floor. The splatter fell the way it would if the Lahiris had been killed in their positions now.
Gooseflesh rose on Flint’s skin. He’d never seen anything quite like this.
Then the man gathered up the bots, removed the chips from their wiring, and threw the bots in a pile against the kitchen door. The one remaining bot still floated, as if nothing had happened around it.
The man reached up into the security system’s main board. As Flint watched, the vid flickered, then went dark.
Flint had never seen anything quite so brilliant. The remaining bot would be reprogrammed to clean all but the staged areas—that was why the place was so clean, and yet the bloodstains stayed on the walls. The bot also probably gathered the damaged bots and sent them into recycling. The program wasn’t designed to get new bots—that would be a choice that the Lahiris, had they lived, would have had to make.
So that one little bot had spent the last few days in the apartment, cleaning up trace, wiping away evidence of the killer’s visit, and helping perpetrate his lie.
Flint shook his head slightly. He wanted to tell DeRicci. She needed this information if she was going to solve the case.
But he couldn’t figure out how to do so. His own signatures were in the Lahiri’s system, buried as deeply as this vid was. For all the police knew, Flint had set this up as a false vid to exonerate himself.
That would be what he would think if he found the vid at this late date, especially with his long-term spyware inside the Lahiris’ system.
All he could hope for at the moment was that the techs in the Detective Division were as bad at taking apart computer systems as they had always been. The last thing he needed was for them to find more evidence of his presence.
The computer screen before him still showed the vid, even though the visuals had gone blank. He had no audio, so he didn’t know what had been on the recording.
Still, he told his machine to try to clean up, to see if it could find any imagery at all. He didn’t hold a lot of hope, but attempting something was better than nothing.
He also ran the translation program, hoping it would get something from the lipreading—at least more than he had. And he took the captured image of the killer, moved it to his other system, and used it as a template, running it against all known criminals in the solar system.
If he didn’t get a hit on that, he would run it against the remaining criminal database, and then any other facial files he might have within the computer.
Even though the computers did the work swiftly, there were still millions of faces to compare this one against. And he was going to have to search to see if this kind of enhancement was available on humans.
If not, he was going to have to see if some of the alien species could disguise themselves as human.
He hadn’t heard of any, but that meant nothing. Most of the aliens within known space weren’t members of the Alliance, and as a consequence, didn’t travel to the Moon. He had never had cause to examine non-Alliance databases before.
He wasn’t even certain what he got from the vid. If it had been unaltered (and he would have to run a check for that too), then it confused matters greatly. The killer had spoken to Carolyn, but there was no guarantee that she was the main target.
After all, the killer had come to the Lahiri home, a place she hadn’t lived for decades. Judge Lahiri worked with aliens. So did Dr. Lahiri. The judge had looked defeated before the killer had done more than hold his wife hostage.
Perhaps the killer had come for the judge and not Carolyn. Or the doctor herself. Flint never did see her initial reaction to the killer’s arrival. For all he knew, this death could have been revenge for some kind of medical procedure gone wrong.
But, as DeRicci used to say, a good detective looked at the anomalies. And the anomaly in this case was Carolyn herself. She hadn’t been in the apartment in decades, and the Lahiris had been fine. She showed up, and within days they were all dead.
If only he could get this last bit of information to DeRicci. But he couldn’t, not without compromising himself further. He couldn’t even send it through the spyware he’d set up in the Detective Division.
He had to find this killer on his own, and he wasn’t even sure where to start.
Twenty-five
Anatolya heard the sound first.
She stood in the wide Port hallway, surrounded by her team and Collier. The team had just finished the link tests; they were back up and running, and she had never felt so relieved in her life.
Then she heard the noise. Voices rose in a low hum—not angry, but not calm either. Like people disgruntled with a turn of events, discussing, and egging each other onward. No one voice rose above the din, no words seemed to stand out.
Gianni moved closer to her. The rest of the team glanced at each other. The voices unnerved them as well.
Collier stayed at her side. His face had gone a ghostly pale.
“I think we should turn around,” he said.
But Anatolya shook her head. They couldn’t play these kinds of games with her. They had released her from the Port, and now they wanted to scare her back into it.
She started to walk, and the others followed. The signs, blinking against the upper walls, informed her that she only had a few meters left before she reached the exit. She had to make certain that her papers were in order, the signs warned her, because she would not be allowed back into the Port if they were not.
Generic messages for generic travelers—none of whom were at this exit of the Port. They had all veered off toward the main exit when she and her team started to leave. The Port Authority tried to be circumspect about it, but they had failed; Anatolya had trained herself early to observe everything that happened around her, and she watched as travelers were deflected, told to take other exits, or had similar messages sent through their links.
&nbs
p; The handful of travelers who persisted were met by Port Security and moved aside. Apparently the Port or the City of Armstrong wanted no one near her or her team as they exited the building.
That had disturbed her as well. She almost did turn around when she saw that and the empty corridor ahead of her. In some ways, the growing sound outside the Port’s exit doors reassured her: yes, there was a plan; yes, it focussed on her; and yes, it was something she could handle.
She’d been half expecting an assassin waiting in the hallways. If that had been the plan, she—or the assassin—would be dead already.
The corridor made one final turn before the double doors opened into the street. Gianni was as close to her as he dared get. His massive frame did not block her view of the upcoming corridor, but he did block her view of the right wall. He was half a step in front of her, ready to block anything that came at her if the need arose.
Collier leaned closer to her left. “Please, Ms. Döbryn,” he said, his voice as low as it could be without a whisper, “we need to turn around.”
“I’m not going back into this port,” she snapped.
Her team moved faster, and Collier had to jog to keep up with them. He was breathing hard. None of the Etaens had even broken a sweat.
“There’s a problem at this exit,” he said. “Please. Let’s go out a different one.”
“Only to discover a problem there?” Anatolya asked. “I don’t think so, Mr. Collier.”
He winced. “You’re the one who said your team had no weapons. Perhaps if we go back, we can get some Port security—”
“My team can defend itself with or without weapons,” Anatolya said, and wished she hadn’t. She didn’t want to sound threatening or difficult. She also didn’t want to reveal too much to this flunky who had thwarted her from the beginning.
“Please, Ms. Döbryn. My people are warning me that a crowd has gathered and they’re very upset.”
“At what?” she asked, still moving forward. Light poured in the double doors at the end of the corridor. It took her a moment to realize that light was as artificial as the interior light. Armstrong was a domed city. She wouldn’t see real light again until she got into her ship.
“They’re upset that you’ve been let into Armstrong.” This time, Collier’s words carried.
The team glanced at him, even the three members who walked in front, breaking rank—breaking the rules—that Anatolya had established for defensive formations long ago. She would reprimand them later. So far, there was no one in the corridors to defend against.
But those voices had grown louder.
How brilliant of her opponents, whoever they were, to notify the residents that Etaens were coming into the dome. Let someone else protest. Allow no one to take the blame, and yet have the same outcome.
Anatolya Döbryn’s meeting would be a disaster for the Alliance, one that would be reported on the nets. Armstrong was known as a civilized, peaceful city. If the team she brought with her upset the good citizens of Armstrong, well then, no other city should take the chance in allowing her and her thugs inside.
She sent a command through her team link, and everyone stopped. They stood at attention, guarding her flanks with military precision.
“How would anyone know I am coming into the dome?” she asked. “My meeting with the Alliance Executive Committee was supposed to be classified.”
“I don’t know, sir,” Collier said. “I only know what I’ve been told. The Alliance is worried about a scene. If we can avoid it, by using another exit or waiting until the turmoil dies down, then—”
“The turmoil will not die down.” Gianni spoke not to Collier, but to Anatolya. Gianni had a gift for public disobedience. He knew how to make crowds do his bidding, and she usually loved him for it. “If these people do not have some kind of satisfaction, they will take matters into their own hands. If they believe you have sneaked through, they will attack the Port.”
“Such things don’t happen in Armstrong,” Collier said.
“Which is why the Alliance wanted to meet here,” Anatolya said, biting back anger. Of course they wanted to meet here. They wanted to meet here, and ruin any chance she had of ever approaching the Alliance again.
She knew she had allies on the Executive Committee, but she also had enemies. And at the moment, her enemies were winning.
“You may find another exit, Mr. Collier,” she said with an imperiousness that she hadn’t used since she left Etae. “But my team and I, we’ll be leaving from this exit. And if we get injured or killed, the government of Armstrong, the Moon, and the Alliance itself will have to answer for our treatment. Send that along your links, along with your observations about my stubbornness.”
He started. Apparently, he had been complaining about her stubbornness, with probably that exact term.
Gianni was good with crowds. Anatolya could be good with people, when she wanted to be. Not so much at persuading them, which she could do if she had to, but at analyzing who they were and what they thought.
That, more than anything, was why the Etaen ruling council had sent her. There were better speakers, better analysts. But no one was better at seeing through people’s masks at their real intents.
“Ms. Döbryn,” Collier said, “please. I truly think you’re making a mistake. Don’t exit from here. We’ll find a better way.”
But she had turned away from him. She sent a forward command through her links, along with a command to defend only, to get her through that crowd as efficiently as possible.
The team started forward again, at a quicker pace, a military pace, and this time Collier didn’t try to join them. The team’s rear had to go around him.
I don’t like that, Gianni sent Anatolya through the links. He’s afraid to come with us.
It’s a set-up, Anatolya said. We have to use it as best we can. We have to survive without giving away much of our position.
Gianni nodded. At that moment, the front members of the team flung the double doors open. Sunlight poured into the corridor, blinding Anatolya.
The voices, which had sounded like a hum only a moment ago, grew into a roar. The doors had blocked most of the noise.
The team stepped out. Anatolya blinked, her eyes adjusting to the light. The team was on a platform, two meters above the crowd. The crowd spread before her like a sea, filling the space between the Port and some of its outbuildings.
Signs flickered throughout the crowd in all the languages of the Alliance, stating the same kinds of things:
Terrorists Go Home!!
No Murderers in Armstrong
Killers Stay Away From Our Children!
A few courageous airtaxi drivers floated above the crowd, and several cars—all with news-department logos—filmed from above.
She was probably live on in a dozen different media outlets. How she handled the next few moments would change everything.
You want to speak to them? Gianni sent.
Hell, no. Anatolya put as much force as possible into the words. The last thing we need are all these news reports to start with me talking and the crowd surging to shut me up. The reports’ll blame my words if anything goes wrong.
We can turn around, Gianni sent.
I haven’t turned away from a fight in my life. Anatolya surveyed the crowd. Most of them were angry citizens. A few, scattered throughout, were simply there for the violence.
They were the ones she had to watch, because they’d incite the others.
“Let’s go,” she said, and as one, her team started down the stairs.
Twenty-six
DeRicci sat down at her desk for the first time in hours. Her hair was a mess, her suit twisted and worn, and her shoes covered with dirt. She felt like an imposter, not like an Assistant Chief of Detectives.
Her own office intimidated her. The large corner windows, which she had been so proud of, almost seemed to be watching her. The soft chairs and end tables looked like they belonged to someone else.
All because of Flint.
Carolyn Lahiri, a Disappeared, and Miles Flint, a Retrieval Artist. DeRicci shook her head. Gumiela would tell her that she should have known Flint had the capacity for breaking the law when he decided to quit his detective position to become a Retrieval Artist.
Retrieval Artists had no respect for the law. If they respected the law, they would have become Trackers, looking for Disappeareds and turning them in.
This afternoon, after going through police archives on Carolyn Lahiri, DeRicci was no longer certain that she believed in letting some Disappeared slip past justice. Lahiri had been a mercenary, fighting for the rebellion in Etae. She had killed countless people in a quest to overthrow a legitimate government, and she had done so with no emotional involvement at all.
She hadn’t even joined up after the Child Martyr incident. She had joined up before. Etae’s conflict hadn’t had universal attention until that incident.
DeRicci didn’t remember it, but she had studied it in school, and her research on Lahiri brought it back. Awful footage of a child being slaughtered by government troops—deliberately killed—had leaked into outside media. The effect of this brutal—and pointless—killing was immediate: reasonable people in the known universe started supporting the rebels against Etae’s established government.
Those rebels got the arms and the monetary support they needed to overthrow that government, and now, decades later, they were in charge.
DeRicci would have understood if Carolyn Lahiri, like so many other idealistic young people, had joined up in the Etaen rebel cause after that famous incident. But she had gone to Etae nearly a year earlier.
DeRicci found that all the more strange, considering that Lahiri had never even been to Etae before she left the Moon. Yet she had traveled with four other mercenaries to the outside edges of the known universe to fight in a war that had no consequences for her, her family, or her friends.
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